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THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY 
DURING THE CIVIL WAR 



THE STORY OF A BORDER 

CITY DURING THE 

CIVIL WAR 



BY 

GALUSHA ANDERSON, S.T.D., LL. D. 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
BESIDENT OF ST. LOUIS FROM 1858 TO 1866 



With Twelve Portraits and Views 



•• On the perilous edge of battle." — Jb/w Milton. 



Boston 

Little, Brown, and Company 

1908 



V^ 



|urr5f.''v if congress) 
SEP 21 >y08 

Oi-Ads (X. xxc. «6. 1 

COPY rt. I 



Copyright, 1908, 
Bt Galusha Anderson. 



^ii rigrAis reserved 



Published September, 1908 






V 



COLONIAL PRESS 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 

Boston, U.S.A. 



To all those, living or dead, who by wisdom, tact and 

self-sacrifice helped to keep Missouri in the 

Union, this hook is affectionately 

dedicated 



AN EXPLANATION 

I HAVE been frequently urged by men in different 
parts of the country to write out, and give to the pubHc, 
the story of St. Louis during the Civil War. Having 
had of late my time largely at my own disposal, I deter- 
mined to yield to these earnest solicitations. But I have 
found the task somewhat more difficult than I antici- 
pated. While all that I saw in St. Louis, and all in which 
I participated, came back to my mind with remarkable 
freshness and vividness, I have been compelled, because 
of the lapse of time since the war, to verify my recollec- 
tions by wide reading and painstaking research. I have 
tried to weigh impartially what has been said both by 
those who were for, and those who were against, the 
Union. 

Upon some points pertaining to military operations in 
St. Louis and Missouri, I have found considerable 
conflicting testimony. In such cases I have either given 
authorities on both sides, or, having sifted the evidence 
pro and con, have presented what seemed to me to be, 
at least approximately, the historical facts. And while 
in some instances I may have come short of absolute 
accuracy, in all my statements I have earnestly en- 
deavored to present the exact truth. 

But I have treated of the movements of troops and 
the acts of the general government only in so far as they 
immediately affected the life and experiences of those 
within our city. My sole object in all that I have written 



viii An Explanation 

has been to portray as clearly and vividly as I could 
what transpired among us from 1860 to 1865; to note 
some events that preceded the war and were the har- 
bingers of it; to reveal the currents of thought and 
feeling in St. Ijouis during the whole fratricidal struggle, 
and especially to point out what was peculiar to us as 
a community made up of the loyal and disloyal. 

To my own mind it is clear that our great Civil War 
can never be fully understood without a knowledge of 
the unique experiences of a border city, and especially 
of St. Louis, for the possession of which both parties 
to our great national conflict so earnestly contended. 
During the long and bloody battle for the Union, my 
home was there, and this book is simply " an unvar- 
nished tale " of what I saw and of work in which I 
shared. As a testimony I trust that it may be of some 
worth. 

And since I intended it to be only a simple testimony, 
it has not been written to make out a case. I have tried 
to divest myself of the spirit of a partisan, and to pre- 
sent in an unbiased manner what I personally observed. 
I have endeavored to write, as the martyred President 
did, " with malice toward none, with charity for all." 

Galusha Anderson. 

Newton Centre, Mass. 
April, 1908. 

For the originals of several of the illustrations in 
this volume the author is indebted to Miss Mary 
Louise Dalton, the late Librarian of the Missouri liis- 
torical Society, whose many kindnesses will always be 
held in grateful remembrance. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. St. Louis 1 

II. Forebodings of Conflict . . . .11 

III. Rumblings of the Conflict .... 32 

IV. The Boomerang Convention ... 40 
V. The Fight for the Arsenal ... 63 

VI. Camp Jackson 86 

VII. Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation . 106 

VIII. The Pulpit and the Press .... 120 

IX. Decision and Division 146 

X. Bitterness . 159 

XI. Slaves and Slave - pens .... 170 

XII. Prisons and Prisoners 188 

XIII. Lyon in Conference and in Campaign . 198 

XIV. Fremont and Fiasco 206 

XV. Extraordinary Acts 227 

XVI. Halleck and His Manifestoes . . . 234 

XVII. Refugees 251 

XVIII. Difficult Currency 268 

XIX. Not Peace but the Sword .... 271 

XX. Charcoals and Claybanks .... 276 

XXI. Homes and Hospitals 288 

XXII. The Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair . 309 

XXIII. A Dark Plot Thwarted .... 315 

XXIV. Negro Schools 333 

XXV. After Darkness Light 338 

XXVI. Radicals in Convention .... 342 

XXVn. The Wind-up 360 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A Bird's-eye View of St. Louis in 1860 . Frontispiece 

From a lithograph in the possession of the Missouri Historical 
Society. 

The Arsenal, St. Louis, in 1866 63 

Camp Jackson, St. Louis 89 

From a photograph in the possession of the Missouri Historical 
Society. 

Gratiot Street Prison, Formerly the McDowkll 

Medical College 188 

From an oil painting, the property of the Missouri Historical 
Society. 

Brigadier - General Nathaniel Lyon . . . 198 

General Fremont's Headquarters, St. Louis . . 206 

Facsimile of a Pass, Issued to the Author in 1861 215 

The Author, Galusha Anderson, in 1861 . . 218 

From a daguerreotype. 

Honorable Frank P. Blair, Jr 279 

From an oil painting, the property of the Missouri Historical 
Society. 

Major - General Henry W. Halleck . . . 279 

Major - General William S. Rosecrans . . . 279 

Major- General John C. Fremont .... 279 

Major- General John McA. Schofield . . . 279 



THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY 
DURING THE CIVIL WAR 



CHAPTER I 

ST. LOUIS 

I NEED not say that St. Louis is built on the western 
bank of the Mississippi River about twenty miles below 
the mouth of the Missouri, since everybody knows that. 
But the present generation thinks of the city only as it 
is to-day, with its more than half a million of inhab- 
itants, extensive parks, palatial residences, well-con- 
structed churches, imposing business blocks, great 
railroad bridges spanning the river, unrivalled central 
depot and attractive trolley cars. But all this has 
flowed from its wonderful development since the close 
of the Civil War. We write of it as it was immediately 
before, and during, that mighty conflict. 

In 1860 it had only one hundred and fifty-one thousand 
seven hundred and eighty inhabitants, about one thou- 
sand five hundred of whom were slaves. A large number 
of enterprising young men had flocked to the city from 
every part of the United States, so that the white males 
of the city exceeded the white females by more than 
ten thousand. Among the whites there were many 
thousands of intelligent, manly, thrifty Germans, a 
fact which needs to be borne in mind, if we would fully 
understand and duly appreciate the part which the city 
acted in the earlier stages of the Civil War. 



2 A Border City in the Civil War 

Most of the city stood then, as now, on bluffs or 
extended terraces that rise gradually one above the 
other. Its situation is both healthful and beautiful. 
But before the war its area was comparatively small. 
It extended along the river only six and a half miles 
and between three and four back from it. It contained 
only fifteen and a half square miles. The ground now 
occupied by the finest residences was then rough, 
open fields, lying beyond its western limits. The city 
was built of brick. The business blocks, warehouses, 
hotels, residences, schoolhouses, and churches were all 
of the same material. Most of the sidewalks were also 
made of red brick. Whichever way you looked your 
eyes rested on red brick, and wherever you walked 
you trod on red brick. I remember but one business 
block that had a stone front, and that was marble. The 
enterprising citizen who built it made quite a fortune 
out of it. Its very novelty made it attractive, and its 
rooms were readily rented to professional men. The 
city is still largely built of brick. The clay from which 
the brick is made is found in large quantities near the 
city, and its inhabitants naturally and wisely use this 
excellent building material that lies close at hand. 

Most of the dwelling-houses were built out to the 
street, so that, with rare exceptions, there were no front 
yards. On warm summer evenings the families living 
in any given block sat on the front stone steps of their 
houses, that they might be refreshed by the cooler 
air of the evening. But most of the streets were mac- 
adamized with limestone, and in summer absorbed 
during the day so much heat, as they lay under the 
burning rays of the sun, that they continued to radiate 
it long after the sun went down. At such times a perch 
on the front stone steps afforded so little relief from 



St. Louis 3 

the heat-laden atmosphere that the half-baked suf- 
ferers longed for the arctic regions. A distinguished 
man from the East, on a hot night in September, waking 
up at two o'clock in the morning from a troubled sleep, 
declared that he found himself, on account of the 
stifling heat, swelling up like a mouse in an exhausted 
receiver. But such days were exceptional and not 
peculiar to St. Louis. 

The larger part of the fuel then consumed in the city 
was soft coal. We bought it not by the ton, but by the 
bushel. In those days there were no smoke-consumers. 
Vast volumes of smoke poured forth from the black 
throats of great chimneys in manufacturing estabUsh- 
ments, while the chimneys of every dwelling-house, and 
the smoke-stack of every steamer on the river, added 
their contribution to render the atmosphere dusky. In 
still days of the autumn or winter the smoke hung like 
a pall over the city. 

But in spite of a few such drawbacks it was even 
then a very pleasant city. There were few who 
were very poor. None were permitted to go unclothed 
and unfed. Most of the people were thrifty; many 
of them were rapidly accunmlating wealth. The mar- 
kets of the city were well supplied with all the varied 
products of the fields and the forests. The homes of 
the people were comfortable, many of them attractive. 
Their tables were loaded with abundant and wholesome 
food. The churches were numerous and well attended. 
The public schools were of a high order. Private schools 
and colleges had been founded, and were already doing 
good work. 

The inhabitants of the city were a conglomerate; 
but just on that account were broad and catholic in 
their thinking. Coming from every section of the 



4 A Border City in the Civil War 

Republic, by attrition their provincialisms and preju- 
dices were worn away till they came to take compre- 
hensive and just views of the great questions that were 
at that time agitating the nation. Men from the South 
and North had learned each other's excellences, and 
with mutual respect and high esteem stood shoulder 
to shoulder in business, civic duty and charitable and 
religious service. I have never met anywhere men of 
broader gauge. 

Among them were those distinguished as lawyers, 
statesmen, and preachers. To name some to the neglect 
of others would seem to be invidious. But among the 
lawyers, Samuel Glover and James 0. Broadhead; 
among the preachers, Henry A. Nelson, Truman M. Post, 
Wm. G. Eliot and Father Smarius; among the states- 
men, Frank P. Blair and Edward Bates, the latter 
afterwards Attorney-general in President Lincoln's 
Cabinet, are names which readily occur to those of that 
generation who still live. 

When, in the autumn of 1858, I made St. Louis my 
adopted home, the name of Thomas H. Benton was on 
all lips. He had died in April of that year. The people 
of the city were justly very proud of him. He had 
represented Missouri for thirty years in the Senate of 
the United States, and was unquestionably the most 
distinguished man of the State and of the Northwest. 
A funeral procession fully five miles in length had fol- 
lowed his body to its burial-place in Belle Fontaine 
Cemetery. But this great man, like many others who 
have been pre-eminent, had marked peculiarities. In 
the Senate he was called " The Magisterial." In con- 
sonance with that descriptive phrase, when he ad- 
dressed crowds at political meetings in St. Louis, he 
never said, " Fellow citizens," but always simply, 



St. Louis 5 

" Citizens." And the contents of his speeches from 
the stump were often quite as magisterial. 

Mr. Benton, while United States Senator, at times 
took an active part in the election of congressmen 
from St. Louis. It was customary then for those op- 
posed to each other to speak in turn to the people from 
the same platform. On one occasion Mr. Crum was 
the name of the candidate who, with Mr. Benton, was 
addressing the voters of the city. Near the close of 
one of Mr. Benton's speeches, he said, " Citizens, is 
my opponent a loaf, or even a crust? No," then suiting 
the action to the word, he apparently picked up and 
held a ver}^ small particle between his thumb and 
finger, while he added in a tone of great contempt, — 
" No, citizens, he is nothing but a tiny Crum." 

During another canvass, he was stoutly opposing Mr. 
Bogie, who was a candidate for Congress. Late one 
evening when about to close his speech in reply to him, 
he said, " Citizens, you have been told that my oppo- 
nent's name is Bogie. Citizens, it is a mistake; his 
name is Bogus. But, citizens, notwithstanding that, 
like Cato of Rome, I would now send my servants 
(slaves) to light him home, were it not that to-morrow 
you would be asking, ' Mr. Benton, what sort of com- 
pany do your servants keep? ' " 

In 1856, his son-in-law, John C. Fremont, was offered 
the Republican nomination for the Presidency, and 
asked him if he thought it was best for him to accept 
it? Benton, believing the Republican party to be 
sectional, was bitterly opposed to it; so he said to 
Fremont, "If you accept the nomination, I'll drop you 
Hke a hot potato, sir! like a hot potato, sir! " 

These incidents, standing alone, would misrepresent 
Mr. Benton; but they throw a side-light on his char- 



6 A Border City in the Civil War 

acter and help us better to understand the most eminent 
citizen of St. Louis, a statesman of large mold and of 
a well-merited national reputation. 

The early history of St. Louis is so full of interest that 
we cannot refrain from briefly noting a few items that 
belong to it. Its beginning carries us back to 1764. 
It was then a mere trading-post of a company of mer- 
chants, whose leader was Pierre Ligueste Laclede. 
The post consisted of one house and four stores. It 
was named St. Louis in honor of the patron saint of 
Louis XV of France. Though not possessing the dignity 
of an incorporated town, the following year it became 
the capital of Upper Louisiana. Through the wise 
foresight of Jefferson, despite his party principles, 
the vast and vaguely defined territory of Louisiana 
was purchased from France at a time when Napoleon 
sorely needed money. In transferring this immense 
region there were two formal ceremonies, one at New 
Orleans, Dec. 20th, 1803; the other at St. Louis, on 
March 10th, 1804. On the latter day Major Stoddard, 
who was the agent of the French Government to receive 
Upper Louisiana from Spain, for France, was also the 
accredited agent of our government to take over the 
same territory for the United States. That one man 
should represent both nations in affairs of such tre- 
mendous importance was, to say the least, unique.^ 
This ceremony of transfer took place at the northeast 
corner of First, or Main, and Walnut Streets. The event 
should be commemorated by some suitable tablet or 
monument erected on the spot of transfer. We trust 
that the Missouri Historical Society will have the honor 

• The originals of both these commissions are in the archives of 
the Missouri Historical Society. See also Scharf's History of St. 
Louis, and Billon's Annals of St. Louis. 



St. Louis 7 

of doing this work so consonant with its aims and 
character. 

The town of St. Louis was laid out between the river 
and the first range of bluffs on the west, and a series of 
circular towers was erected around it for defence. The 
houses were mainly built of rough stone and white- 
washed, and each house had a separate lot for fruit 
and flowers. These houses were without cellars. The 
first house provided with such a convenience was built 
by Laclede on what is now called Main Street, between 
Market and Walnut. Indian women and children 
helped dig it, carrying out the dirt on their heads, in 
wooden platters and baskets. In this house civil govern- 
ment was inaugurated in 1765 by Captain Louis Saint 
Ange, Acting French Governor of Upper Louisiana; in it, 
also, the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained in 1825. 

The streets of the old town were all quite narrow; 
it was thought that such streets could be more easily 
defended. And there they are, cramped and narrow 
to this day. But in time the land above and 
west of the village was laid out in town lots, and the 
chief promoters of this enterprise. Judge Lucas and 
Colonel Chouteau, built their dwelling-houses far back 
from the river and the old town, the former at the 
corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets, the latter at 
the corner of Sixth and Olive Streets. In 1809, the 
year in which St. Louis was incorporated as a town. 
Fort Belle Fontaine became the headquarters of the 
Department of Upper Louisiana. It was several miles 
north of the village, on a high bluff, overlooking the 
Mississippi. The land for this fort was secured by treaty 
from the Sac and Fox Indians. On it was a great 
spring of pure water capable of supplying a thousand 
men; hence the name of the fort, Belle Fontaine. 



8 A Border City in the Civil War 

St. Louis was early called the Gateway of the West. 
In 1817 the first steamboat tied up to her levee.^ This 
was the beginning of an imperial trade. Streams of 
commerce now began to flow into her markets from the 
great continental rivers, from the upper Mississippi, 
the Illinois, the Missouri, the Ohio, the lower Mississippi 
with its far-reaching affluents; and, through the Gulf 
of Mexico, even from the cities of the Atlantic sea- 
board. For many years her chief trade had been in 
the pelts and furs of wild animals; but now this lucra- 
tive traffic was greatly augmented. For forty years 
the annual value of it alone was between two and three 
hundred thousand dollars, while commerce in all agri- 
cultural products and in manufactured goods was 
constantly swelling in volume. Still it is worthy of 
note that deerskins were an article of barter, and furs 
were currency in St. Louis, from the days of Laclede 
until Missouri became a State in 1821; and a year later, 
even before St. Louis had five thousand inhabitants, 
it was chartered as a city. 

When under Spanish control, it was strictly Roman 
Catholic. In 1862 I met at a wedding in St. Louis a lady 
almost a hundred years old. She was still in excellent 
health. Her intellect was clear and vigorous. As 
she took my arm to go to the wedding supper, she archly 
remarked, " Your wife will not be jealous when she 
learns how old I am." Yet, when we were seated at 
the table, after some moments of absolute silence on 
her part, into which I did not venture to intrude, she 
said, " I do believe that God has forgotten me." I looked 
at her with mingled astonishment and curiosity and 
said, " Why so? " She replied, " AU the friends of my 
early life are gone and I am left alone." She now 

*The Louisiaua Purchase ; Hitchcock, p. 243. 



St. Louis 9 

became reminiscent and added, " I lived here when St. 
Louis belonged to Spain. And just as for many years 
no free negro has been permitted to enter this city 
without a pass, so for years, in my early life, no Protes- 
tant could enter it without a written permit from the 
Spanish authorities." 

But, while under the rule of the United States all 
religious intolerance disappeared, African slavery 
flourished, established and protected by law. And 
although in 1860 St. Louis had but few slaves, never- 
theless pro-slavery sentiment largely prevailed. Those 
who cherished it were often intense and bitter, and at 
that time socially controlled the entire city. But on 
the other hand the leading business men of the city 
were quietly, conservatively, yet positively, opposed 
to slavery. Many of them had come from New England 
and the Middle States and believed slavery to be a 
great moral wrong; but those from the North and 
South alike saw that slavery was a drag upon the 
commercial interests of the city and all were hoping 
that in some way the incubus might be lifted off from 
it. For St. Louis, the commercial capital of Missouri, 
already had many great merchants and enterprising 
manufacturers, who were not only throwing out their 
lines of trade into every part of the State, but also into 
all the surrounding States and territories. It was linked 
by the Mississippi and Missouri, fed by numerous and 
important affluents, with a vast territory which was 
probably the richest on the earth's surface. And very 
much of its trade was with southern cities. In 1860, 
more than four thousand steamers, with a capacity 
of one million one hundred and twenty thousand and 
thirty-nine tons, loaded and unloaded at its wharves. To 
obstruct the Father of Waters at the mouth of the 



10 A Border City in the Civil War 

Ohio, or to divide it by secession, was a matter of life 
and death to all the business interests of St. Louis. 
And no one without this conception clearly in mind 
can adequately understand what took place there in 
those days of awful storm and stress between 1860 and 
1865. 



CHAPTER II 

FOREBODINGS OF CONFLICT 

For many years the subject of slavery, in its varied 
aspects, had been constantly and hotly discussed in 
all political and religious journals, on the stump, in the 
pulpit, and in the Congress of the United States. The 
higher law doctrine, propounded by William H. Seward, 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, the 
Kansas war, Lincoln's celebrated debate with Douglas, 
and his pregnant declaration in 1858, that the nation 
could not continue to exist half slave and half free, 
that " a house divided against itself cannot stand," 
had greatly agitated the whole nation. In the hearts 
of pro-slavery men, vengeful fire was smouldering; 
it needed only an added breath to make it shoot up into 
a devouring flame. The apprehensiveness and extreme 
sensitiveness of pro-slavery Missouri manifested itself 
in the winter of 1859-60, through its legislature. That 
body of law-makers passed a bill by an overwhelming 
majority, expelling from the State all free negroes. 
There were more than a thousand of that class in St. 
Louis, and a large majority of these were females, doing 
domestic service in the best families of the city. The 
excitement caused by this short-sighted action of the 
legislature was intense. The bill enacted was a declara- 
tion in the form of law, that the presence of free negroes 
was a menace to slavery. Many men in St. Louis were 



12 A Border City in the Civil War 

asking with flushed faces, " What shall be done to meet 
this emergency, to avert this calamity? " 

I met on the street one of the coolest men that it has 
been my lot to know during a long life, and even he, 
whose spirit never seemed to be ruffled by any exasper- 
ating event, was hot with indignation. With great 
vehemence he denounced the barbarous legislation, 
and said that something must be done to thwart its 
purpose. But on inquiry I found that he was unable 
to suggest any line of action by which this vicious 
legislation could be neutralized. 

Now let us note in contrast another man. There was 
a negro pastor in the city by the name of Richard 
Anderson. When a boy he was a slave, and had been 
brought from Virginia to Missouri. When he was twelve 
years old his master, Mr. Bates, had given him his 
freedom. He now began to do odd jobs about the city. 
He became a newspaper carrier, and thus aided in dis- 
tributing among its subscribers The Missouri Republi- 
can. While doing his work he learned to read; the 
newspaper that he carried from door to door was his 
spelling-book and school reader. With his ability to 
read came broader intelligence. He industriously 
thumbed and mastered good books. The Bible was 
constantly read by him. He became a Christian. 
He was called to be a preacher and pastor. He was a 
large man of commanding presence, a descendant of 
an African chief. He was very black. While his nose 
was somewhat flattened, it was straight and sharply 
cut; his thick lips were firmly set. His eyes were 
large and lustrous, his forehead was high and broad. 
He preached well. His manner was quiet, suggesting 
reserved power; his thought w^as orderly and clear. 
He had great power over an audience. If his black 



Forebodings of Conflict 13 

hearers became noisy with their shouting of " amen " 
and "hallehijah," by a gentle wave of the hand he 
reduced them to silence. He was a born leader, but he 
led by the inherent force of his character. One of his 
deacons said, "He led us all by a spider's web." He 
was universally respected, and was welcome to all 
houses where the members of his church were employed. 
He never betrayed any confidence reposed in him. 
Like his Master "he went about doing good." Nothing 
diverted him from his purpose. Nothing seemed to 
disturb his equanimity. While he sometimes burned 
with indignation, he never lost control of himself. 
He was a man of rare balance of mind. 

He presided over a church of a thousand members. 
Fully half of them were free. The bill for the expulsion 
of free negroes from the State fell with greater severity 
upon him than upon any other man in St. Louis. I 
met him expecting that he would be greatly agitated 
and cast down; but was surprised to find him abso- 
lutely unruffled. I ventured to ask him if he had heard 
of the recent legislation pertaining to free negroes. 
He quietly replied that he had, and then added with 
emphasis, "That bill will never become a law." With 
mingled curiosity and surprise I asked, " How do you 
know that? " Lifting his hand and pointing upward 
toward heaven, and turning his eyes thitherward he 
replied, " I know because I have asked up there." 
Calm and assured as he was, I feared that he was the 
victim of a fatal illusion from which he might be soon 
rudely awakened. But nothing that I said in oppo- 
sition to his conclusion moved him in the slightest 
degree from his conviction. 

Time soon showed that this black man with his great, 
calm soul, and unswerving faith was right. Hon. 



14 A Border City in the Civil War 

R. M. Stewart was then governor of the state. He was 
a staunch Bourbon Democrat. He believed slavery 
to be right. He drank whiskey freely and said: "Cotton 
is not king, but corn and corn-whiskey are king." He 
knew that. He spoke from abundant and sad experi- 
ence. 

But he had been brought up in eastern New York. 
The doctrine that all men, irrespective of color, have 
an inalienable right to liberty had been breathed in 
with the air of his native hills, and had become part 
and parcel of his life-blood. As he looked at that 
infamous bill, passed almost unanimously, the teaching 
received in boyhood asserted itself. It was stronger 
than his pro-slavery Bourbonism, stronger than party 
ties; his soul was in revolt against this shameless 
iniquity. If, however, he should veto the bill, these 
legislators would quickly pass it over his head. So he 
took the only course by which it could be effectually 
defeated. The legislature was about to adjourn. It 
was his constitutional privilege to retain the bill instead 
of returning it with his signature or his veto. If he did 
not return it within twenty days, it failed to become 
a law. He pocketed it, and the free negroes were left 
in peace. And who can say that the praying, believing, 
black pastor did not know? 

But although this execrable legislation failed, it 
left its indelible mark on the public mind. Men were 
made by it sensitive and suspicious. They doubted, 
as never before, the possibility of maintaining a govern- 
ment which extended its aegis over forces so utterly 
antagonistic as freedom and slavery. In this portentous 
state of the public mind the presidential campaign of 
1860 began. Throughout the Union the political 
conflict was fierce, but in Missouri, and in its great com- 



Forebodings of Conflict 15 

mercial city, St. Louis, it was unusually hot and acri- 
monious. African slavery was the distracting problem. 
None attempted to disguise it. Men on every hand 
spoke plainly and boldly. Most of the people of the 
slave states, and the citizens of Missouri among the rest, 
believed with all their hearts that if the Republican 
party should be successful at the polls, henceforth 
slavery would probably be excluded from the territories, 
and, at no distant day, would become extinct even in 
the states. They seemed to see on the wall the hand- 
writing that foretold its doom. Their more fiery orators 
declared that if slavery were hemmed into the states, 
" like a scorpion girt by fire, it would sting itself to 
death." This was a most unfortunate simile with 
which to characterize an institution that they stoutly 
contended was not only beneficent, but also divine. 

They regarded the Republican candidate for the 
Presidency as the embodiment of all their apprehended 
woes, and so they poured out upon him without stint 
their bitterest execrations. In this they were encour- 
aged by the outrageous cartoons of Harper's Weekly. 
In one of its issues he was depicted in ludicrous, not to 
say horrible, uncouthness of figure, as drunk in a bar- 
room. The moral turpitude of such a representation 
was simply unspeakable when we remember that Mr. 
Lincoln in his boyhood promised his mother that he 
would never drink intoxicating liquor and had sacredly 
kept his word. In another issue of the Weekly he was 
portrayed as frightened by ghosts, his shocky hair 
standing on end. So, sustained by a widely read 
Northern journal in their grotesque and monstrous 
representations of Mr. Lincoln, many of them, not 
aU, emptied upon him a flood of billingsgate. Some in 
common conversation, others in their political harangues 



16 A Border City in the Civil War 

on the stump, called him an idiot, a buffoon, a baboon, 
the Illinois ape, a gorilla. 

But in St. Louis there were from fifty to sixty 
thousand Germans, and they were almost solidly 
Republican. During this vituperative presidential 
canvass they invited Carl Schurz to address them and 
their fellow citizens, on the burning question of the 
hour. He was not as widely known then as he after- 
wards became; still he had already acquired consider- 
able reputation as a political speaker. Moreover, he 
came to us from a free state, and a host of men in the 
city were anxious to hear what this German from 
Wisconsin had to say to them concerning our great 
national problem. In the evening of the first of August, 
1860, he appeared in Verandah Hall. Fully three thou- 
sand enthusiastic souls were there to greet him and 
hear him. He spoke, as was his custom, from manu- 
script. His subject was, " The Doom of Slavery." 
With rare lucidity and forcefulness he justly stated 
the position of slavery and showed that, from its very 
nature, it could not permit men on its own soil freely 
to discuss it; nor could it safely permit the slaves to be 
educated except for servants, lest thereby there might be 
engendered within them aspirations for freedom incom- 
patible with involuntary servitude; nor could slavery 
favor the development of domestic industries, since 
that would build up the free states more rapidly than 
their own, and so disturb the political equilibrium of 
the Republic; and for the same reason slavery could 
not consent to be kept out of the territories of the 
Northwest. 

In contrast with this, he stated with equal clearness 
and cogency the position of free labor. It requires 
the highest advantages, educational and industrial, 



Forebodings of Conflict 17 

for all ; instead of class privileges it demands privileges 
that are universal. He showed the utter incompati- 
bility of slavery and free labor. 

With unusual incisiveness he now analyzed the plat- 
forms of the parties that were then appealing to the 
people for their suffrages, pouring out his racy satire 
especially on squatter sovereignty or non-intervention, 
of which Senator Douglas of Illinois was the champion. 

In the latter part of his masterful speech, by the 
clearest and most trenchant argument, he revealed the 
egregious folly of attempting to dissolve the Union, and 
then powerfully appealed to the reason and good sense 
of the slaveholders, some of whom sat before him, 
and urged them to abandon their position. 

Two short paragraphs will reveal in some measure 
the spirit with which the orator spoke. He said: "I 
hear the silly objection that your sense of honor forbids 
you to desert your cause. Sense of honor! Imagine a 
future generation standing around the tombstone of 
the bravest of you, and reading the inscription, 'Here 
lies a gallant man, who fought and died for the cause 
— of human slavery.' What will the verdict be? His 
very progeny will disown him, and exclaim, ' He must 
have been either a knave or a fool.' There is not one 
of you who, if he could rise from the dead a century 
hence, would not gladly exchange his epitaph for that 
of the meanest of those who were hung at Charlestown." 

" I turn to you. Republicans of Missouri. Your 
countrymen owe you a debt of admiration and gratitude 
to which my poor voice can give but a feeble expression. 
You have undertaken the noble task of showing the 
people of the North that the slaveholding States them- 
selves contain the elements of regeneration, and of 
demonstrating to the South how that regeneration can 



18 A Border City in the Civil War 

be effected. You have inspired the wavering masses 
with confidence in the practicabihty of our ideas. 
To the North you have given encouragement; to the 
South you have set an example. Let me entreat you 
not to underrate your noble vocation. Struggle on, 
brave men ! The anxious wishes of millions are hovering 
around you. Struggle on until the banner of emancipa- 
tion is planted upon the Capitol of your State, and one 
of the proudest chapters of our history will read: Mis- 
souri led the van, and the nation followed." (Immense 
and long-continued cheering.) 

It was a great speech, profoundly philosophical, 
keen in analysis, virile in argument, brilliant in style, 
and absolutely and refreshingly fearless. It strengthened 
feeble knees, stiffened gelatinous backbones, and gave 
courage to the faint-hearted. Again and again the 
great throng that listened broke out into rapturous 
applause. Thinking men were profoundly stirred. 
The free-soilers who for many months had been battling 
against fearful odds for the freedom of all, from that 
hour walked with firmer tread. One could feel in it 
all the first breath of the coming battle between free- 
dom and slavery. 

At last the canvass was over; November came; the 
ballots were cast and counted, and, in spite of all the 
abuse heaped upon him, Mr. Lincoln was triumphantly 
elected. In the slave State of Missouri, he received 
more than seventeen thousand votes, almost wholly 
in St. Louis, Gasconade and Cole counties.^ To me it 
has always been a genuine joy that it fell to my lot to 
cast one of those ballots. They were ballots of freedom 
and progress. 

After the election, all those in St. Louis, who had hoped 

> W. E. S. 2 Vol, I, p. 244. 



Forebodings of Conflict 19 



'& 



against hope that the Republican party might be de- 
feated, seemed to settle down into sullen, silent, blank 
despair. Under the circumstances no one cared to 
talk openly. Those whose hearts were full of joy over 
the outcome of the battle of ballots gave little or no 
public expression of their gladness, lest they might 
unduly vex their disappointed and downhearted neigh- 
bors; while most of the latter rigidly refrained from 
openly proclaiming their bitter chagrin over their defeat, 
lest they might augment the elation of the victors. More- 
over, most of those in St. Louis, irrespective of their 
party affiliations, felt the supreme importance of keep- 
ing the peace of the city unbroken. A large minority, 
however, were too proud to give expression to their 
despair, but thought in silence, and, as subsequent 
events proved, much of their thinking was desperate. 
From one cause or another all, so far as public utterance 
was concerned, held their peace, but it was that omi- 
nous stillness that precedes the bursting of the storm. 
But underneath this surface-calm there were clandes- 
tine, but energetic, movements that portended armed 
conflict. There were two formidable political clubs in 
the city. The one was the Wide-Awakes. This was 
Republican in politics. It was made up of the most 
progressive young men of St. Louis. Many of them 
had just come into the RepubUcan ranks; their political 
faith was new; they had the zeal and enthusiasm of 
recent converts. They were also stimulated by the 
fact that they were called upon to maintain their 
political doctrine in the face of the stoutest opposition. 
With their torchlights they had just been marching 
and hurrahing for Lincoln. They had cheered the 
vigorous speeches of their briUiant orators. Their 
candidate, though defeated in their city and State, 



20 A Border City in the Civil War 

had been triumphantly elected to the Presidency. 
Such a body of men, flushed with victory, was a pohtical 
force which every thoughtful man saw must be reckoned 
with. 

The other political club was the Minute Men. They 
were mostly young, but conservative, Democrats. 
They had supported Douglas for the Presidency. They 
too had had their torchlight processions. They had 
listened to impassioned harangues from the stump 
and loudly cheered them. Even their distinguished 
political leader came during the canvass and spoke to 
them with rare persuasiveness in defence of squatter 
sovereignty, and they were proud of "The Little 
Giant," as Senator Douglas was popularly called. 
Then, in their city and State they had been victorious 
at the polls. While defeated in the nation at large, 
they felt strong, braced, as they believed themselves 
to be, by the old and oft-tested doctrines of Democracy. 
Here was another mighty political force. If armed 
conflict were to come, on which side would it array itself? 
While Mr. Douglas, their admired leader, was a staunch 
Union man, most of these Minute Men, who had so 
strenuously striven to elect him to the Presidency, 
after they learned the verdict at the polls, began to 
drift into the ranks of the secessionists. Nor did they 
disband; but they began to organize for hostilities. 
When this was observed, influential Republicans ad- 
vised the Wide-Awakes not to break up their organiza- 
tions, but to continue to meet statedly, just as they 
had during the presidential campaign, to procure 
arms so far as they were able, and to subject themselves 
to military drill. And during the winter of 1860-61 
these antagonistic political organizations, the Minute 
Men and the Wide-Awakes, now to all intents and 



Forebodings of Conflict 21 

purposes transformed into military bodies, met regu- 
larly at their various rendezvous and went through 
the manual of arms. Late in the evening, I often passed 
a hall occupied by a company of Minute Men, or seces- 
sionists, where I heard them march, countermarch and 
ground arms. Things like this were unmistakable 
premonitions of bloody battle. Some of our immediate 
neighbors and friends evidently already contemplated 
appealing " from ballots to bullets," and a shiver of 
apprehension ran down our spines. 

But a serious problem now presented itself for solution. 
How could arms be obtained for the Wide-Awakes or 
Union men? In some mysterious way the Minute Men 
or secessionists had been at least partially armed. 
We could only guess what was the source of their supply. 
But where could the Wide-Awakes secure guns? There 
were arms in abundance at the Arsenal in the southern 
part of the city, but they belonged to the United States; 
and as there were as yet no open hostilities, private 
military organizations could not lawfully be furnished 
with them. Notwithstanding this, we did not propose, 
if the hour of need should strike, to be found napping. 
So after due deliberation it was announced that, in a 
certain hall, there would be an art exhibition, which 
would continue for three weeks or more. To the general 
public it seemed to be an unpropitious time for such a 
venture, but as it had no warlike look it aroused no 
suspicion, and was generously patronized by those 
of all shades of political opinion. The exhibition in 
its display of statuary and painting was not only credit- 
able but attractive. It was also a financial success; 
but outside the few determined Union men who made 
up the inner circle, the secret reason of that burning 
zeal for cultivating the artistic tastes of the city was 



22 A Border City in the Civil War 

quite unknown. Considerable material for the exhibition 
was sent to us from the East; among other things 
was a plentiful supply of plaster casts from New York. 
These were packed in large boxes; but some patriots 
of Gotham, who sent them, knew our secret and our 
necessities, and also forwarded to us boxes of muskets 
labeled as plaster casts, with plain directions to handle 
the fragile contents with care. Those who arranged 
the material of the art exhibit, unable, on account 
of the rush of work, to unpack these boxes in the day- 
time, were compelled to leave them till midnight 
before they were cared for. Then, unopened, they were 
carted to the places where patriotic Wide-Awakes were 
gathered. Shining muskets never gave more joy than 
these imparted to the Union men of St. Louis. And 
dming that anxious, dismal winter, they often met in 
their secret places, and while hoping that all threatened 
disaster might be averted, statedly went through the 
manual of arms. Hoping for the best, they determined 
to be ready for the worst. 

So the city had a number of hostile camps, which had 
been so secretly formed and maintained that many 
did not even know of their existence. These hostile 
bodies had been armed; but no one yet knew where 
the Minute Men, or secessionists, obtained their arms; 
and the secessionists did not even know that the Wide- 
awakes, the Union men, were armed at all. Yet there 
these opposing bands of men were, cherishing diametric- 
ally opposite purposes. Some of them had deter- 
mined if possible to disrupt the Republic; some 
of them had determined to do all in their power 
to prevent such a catastrophe. To make good 
their respective purposes, they were secretly drilling, 
while the whole city was full of apprehension, often 



Forebodings of Conflict 23 

greatly depressed in spirit and sometimes wrapped 
in gloom. 

While these things were being done under cover, 
the people of the city carefully abstained from all 
outward manifestations of their patriotism. The fire 
burned in the bones of Union men, but for pru- 
dential reasons they did not permit it to flame 
forth. They determined if possible to avoid con- 
flict and bloodshed within our gates. No preacher 
spoke for the Republic. No congregation sang, " My 
country, 'tis of thee." No band played " The Star- 
Spangled Banner." Outside of the Arsenal there was 
but one United States flag hung out in all the city, and 
that floated over the main entrance of a dry-goods 
store; partly, as we thought, from patriotic, and partly 
from mercenary, motives; but to all lovers of the 
Union, it was a cheering sight. And this flagless con- 
dition of the city continued till May of 1861, when 
gradually the houses, places of business, and in some 
instances even the churches of the loyal, began to 
blossom with national banners. 

Events outside of the city greatly agitated us. In 
December of 1860, the Governor of Alabama sent 
commissioners to all the slaveholding States, inviting 
and urging them to secede from the Union. He wished 
these States to act as a unit, to go out of the Union to- 
gether, in order that the resulting Confederacy might 
from the start be as formidable as possible. One of 
these commissioners, Mr. William Cooper, presented 
this appeal from Alabama to Governor Stewart at our 
State capital, who received him with frigid courtesy and 
listened unsympathetically to his message. He then 
called on the Governor-elect, Claiborn F. Jackson, who 
unhesitatingly expressed his sympathy with the pro- 



24 A Border City in the Civil War 

posed secession movement.^ This of course aroused 
our indignation, but it was what we should have expected 
of one who had been prominent among armed Mis- 
sourians, that, at an earlier day, invaded Kansas, and 
bj'^ force deposited their votes in order to make it a slave 
State. 

Then on the heel of this came the secession of 
South Carolina on the twentieth of December. To 
be sure, the excitement caused among us by these omi- 
nous political measures was shared by the whole nation. 
But as the situation of a border city was peculiar, the 
agitation that we felt was unique. Unionism and seces- 
sionism in our streets, homes, places of business, and 
social gatherings met face to face. An awful uncer- 
tainty pervaded all minds. Our political destiny 
trembled in the balance. Which way the scale would 
turn no one knew. Moreover, the same events awakened 
in the city opposite and antagonistic emotions. When 
one party was filled with apprehension and sadness, the 
other was filled with hope and joy. Which party was 
most numerous in those days that immediately preceded 
the war was a matter of uncertainty. Upon which side 
our neighbors, our partners in business, and often those 
of our own households would array themselves it was 
difficult to determine. Nor could we forget that the 
announcement of the secession of a State might lead 
to bloody conflict in our streets. Under such peculiar 
circumstances the proposed, or actual, secession of States 
stirred profoundly our whole city. The excitement was 
not noisy, it was too deep for that. Men met, and 
transacted business, without uttering a word concern- 
ing the country. Many of the most thoughtful seemed 
to hold their breath and listen to the beating of their 

»W. R. S. 4, Vol. I, pp. 1-75. 



Forebodings of Conflict 25 

hearts. Not because they were afraid, but because, 
standing in the presence of such portentous move- 
ments, they did not yet know what they ought to do. 

Still, some relief came from engaging in the benevo- 
lent activities of the churches and in attending the 
usual concerts and lectures. Among the lecturers were 
two of special note. One was the Hon. Thomas Marshall 
of Kentucky. He was a brilliant man. He had won 
distinction at the bar, when his State was noted for able 
lawyers; the highest legal and political honors were 
within his grasp ; but through drink he had sadly sacri- 
ficed them all. At times he rallied and seemed to have 
conquered his infirmity. During these sane and sober 
intervals, to turn an honest penny he sometimes lec- 
tured. Occasionally from the depths of his own sad 
experience, with rare eloquence, he advocated total 
abstinence. In the winter of 1860-61 he lectured in 
St. Louis. He was a tall man and well-proportioned. 
He came to the lecture platform dressed from top to toe 
in spotless white. He spoke without notes and with 
ease. His articulation was distinct. At times he was 
simply and naturally conversational; at times he 
became imaginative and impassioned; in his oratorical 
flights he profoundly impressed and swayed his audi- 
ences. He was a Union man, and among the subjects 
that he chose for discussion in our city were Henry 
Clay, and the war of the Revolution. He tried by his 
lectures to stir in the hearts of his hearers the purest 
and loftiest patriotism. All that was noblest and best 
in Mr. Clay as a man and as a statesman was justly 
and vividly set forth. In speaking on the Revolution 
he did all that he could to lead those who at times 
hung upon his lips with breathless interest to defend 
the government which had been wrought out at so great 



26 A Border City in the Civil War 

self-sacrifice. In this manner he rendered to our city 
and to his country an invaluable patriotic service, at a 
time when, and in a place where, it was most needed. 

In his lectures on the Revolutionary War he was 
compelled to speak at considerable length on the price- 
less contributions made to that conflict for freedom 
by Massachusetts. But at that time Massachusetts 
was foolishly but intensely hated by many in St. Louis. 
Many men with Southern sentiments seemed to regard 
it as a duty and privilege to reproach her. There were 
before him not a few hearers of that sort. How could 
he surmount an obstacle so great? When he reached 
the passage in which he was to set forth what Massa- 
chusetts did during the period of the Revolution, he 
uttered the name, " Massachusetts," — and then 
stopped speaking, and looked at his audience. Every 
eye was riveted on him. He walked slowly to the 
extreme left end of the platform. There he stood for a 
moment in silence, still surveying his audience. Then 
he said deliberately, " I suppose that it would be the 
popular thing in this place to damn Massachusetts; 
but whatever you may think of her now, in the Revolu- 
tion she was some pumpkins." The great audience 
broke out into a hearty and prolonged cheer. With 
marvellous tact and consummate art he had brushed 
the obstacle that confronted him from his path; broken 
down the wall that separated him from his hearers, and 
for the nonce they listened without prejudice as he 
glowingly set forth the great work which Massachusetts 
did in achieving our independence. 

A few days afterwards I caught my last ghmpse of 
this fascinating orator. A damp snow had fallen. 
It lay fully two inches deep, half-melted on the brick 
sidewalk. He came out of a house on Chestnut Street 



Forebodings of Conflict 27 

where he was being entertained by a friend. He was 
hatless and in his study-gown and slippers. He walked 
hurriedly on through the slush. His eye was wild. 
The demon that had robbed him of wealth, of a good 
name, of friends, of untold usefulness once more had 
him in his relentless clutch. 

During the same winter the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, 
a lawyer of high standing, came to lecture in our city. 
He was not a brilliant speaker like Mr. Marshall; but 
he had something to say which was of real value to 
his fellow-citizens. He had no flights of oratory, but 
he uttered sound sense and talked right on. He was 
a self-made man of massive character. For twenty-one 
years he had represented in the United States Congress 
the Connecticut Western Reserve in northeastern Ohio, 
and during all that long period of important public 
service had sturdily opposed slavery. He had been 
assaulted and mobbed in Washington for his opinions. 
But no vituperative opposition in debate, nor physical 
violence daunted him. Seeing his unflinching courage, 
many that did not endorse his political doctrines, nor 
approve of his course of action, admired him. He came 
to St. Louis with the garnered wisdom of years and with 
convictions as firm and immovable as a mountain of 
granite. Still, a large number did not gather to hear 
him. He was generally regarded as an abolitionist, 
and that, in the estimation of most men in St. Louis 
of all parties, was worthy of the deepest detestation. 
He spoke in Mercantile Library Hall. It was about 
two-thirds full. Many that came had no sympathy 
with the speaker's views. They were attracted by 
curiosity; they wished to hear what this old anti- 
slavery war-horse would say in the great commercial 
city of a slave State. His lecture was a plain unvar- 



28 A Border City in the Civil War 

nished statement of the rise and growth of slavery 
in the United States. When about half way through 
his address he made a declaration that aroused the 
antagonism of a part of his audience, which expressed 
itself in an emphatic and prolonged hiss. Those in 
sympathy with the doctrine of the speaker answered 
the hiss with a loud and hearty cheer. After the cheer 
there was a still more determined hiss, which was quickly 
followed by a still louder cheer. But at last when there 
came a lull in this sharply contested battle of hissing 
and cheering, the lecturer, who had stood without the 
sUghtest movement coolly surveying the tumultuous 
scene, said, in a strong, clear voice, " It makes no differ- 
ence to me whether you hiss or cheer." By that one 
declaration he seemed to capture his entire audience, 
and all broke out into enthusiastic applause. True 
men everywhere admire honesty and pluck. The coming 
to our city of one so prominent among anti-slavery men, 
who was permitted to make unhindered a judicial and 
luminous historical statement of the beginning and 
development of African slavery in our country, before 
a large audience of our fellow-citizens, marked for us 
the dawn of a new era. The old was passing, the new 
with its broader freedom was at hand. 

But on New Year's Day of 1861 we were startled 
by an event altogether unique. It filled many pro-slavery 
men with bitter resentment, but put new life and hope 
into anti-slavery men of aU shades of opinion, and even 
some who were supposed to uphold slavery were amused 
and in their secret souls rejoiced over the strange hap- 
pening. It came to pass in this wise. When estates 
in St. Louis and St. Louis County were in process of 
settlement, there were often slaves belonging to them 
that must be disposed of at their market value. But 



Forebodings of Conflict 29 

when there was no immediate demand for such property 
these poor creatures were put for safe keeping into the 
county jail, until they could be sold. Of course they 
were not regarded as criminals, but simply as valuable 
assets that, having brains, and wills, and consciences, 
might run away, to the financial detriment of voracious 
heirs. So, until the conditions were favorable for a 
sale, these self-willed chattels were securely lodged 
behind the stone walls and barred doors and windows 
of the malodorous jail. 

In comiection with this reprehensible procedure, a 
culpable custom had sprung up, — a custom exceedingly 
offensive to most of the inhabitants of St. Louis. It had 
become the duty of the sheriff, or his deputy, when the 
kind-hearted heirs gave the order, to sell at auction, 
on New Year's Day, these imprisoned slaves from the 
granite steps of the Court-house. So, on the first of 
January, 1861, a slave auctioneer appeared with seven 
colored chattels of various hues, the thinking fag-ends 
of estates, just led out by him from the jail, where, 
some of them, for more than a year, without having 
been charged with any crime or misdemeanor, had 
been forced to be the companions of thieves, adulterers, 
and murderers. The auctioneer placed these cowering 
slaves on the pedestal of one of the massive piUars of 
the Court-house. Crowning the cupola of this building, 
dedicated to the righteous interpretation and execution 
of the law, was a statue of Justice, with eyes blind- 
folded, holding in her hand a pair of scales, the symbol 
of impartial equity. From the top of the great granite 
pillar, beside which these shrinking human chattels 
stood, waved for the hour a star-spangled banner, the 
symbol of freedom for all the oppressed. This auction 
of slaves had been extensively advertised, and about 



30 A Border City in the Civil War 

two thousand young men had secretly banded them- 
selves together to stop the sale and, if possible, put an 
end to this annual disgrace. The auctioneer on his 
arrival at the Court-house found this crowd of freemen 
in a dense mass waiting for him. The sight of bondmen 
about to be offered for sale, and that too under the 
floating folds of their national flag, crimsoned their 
cheeks with shame and made their hearts hot within 
them. Yet they scarcely uttered a word as they stood 
watching the auctioneer and the timid, shrinking slaves 
at his side. At last he was ready and cried out, " What 
will you bid for this able-bodied boy? ^ There's not a 
blemish on him." Then the indignant, determined 
crowd in response cried out, at the top of their lungs, 
" Three dollars, three dollars," and without a break 
kept up the cry for twenty minutes or more. The auc- 
tioneer yelled to make himself heard above that deafen- 
ing din of voices, but it was all in vain. At last, how- 
ever, the cry of the crowd died away. Was it simply 
a good-natured joke only carried a little too far? The 
auctioneer seemed to be in doubt how to take that 
vociferating throng. " Now," he said in a bantering 
tone, " gentlemen, don't make fools of yourselves; 
how much will you bid for this boy? " Then, for many 
minutes, they shouted, "Four dollars, four dollars," 
and the frantic cries of the auctioneer were swallowed 
up in that babel of yells; his efforts were as futile as 
if he had attempted to whistle a tornado into silence. 
To the joy of that crowd of young men the auctioneer 
was at last in a rage. It had dawned upon him that this 
was no joke; that the crowd before him were not 
shouting for fim on this annual holiday, but were in 
dead earnest. When their cries once more died away, 
* They called all male slaves, boys. 



Forebodings of Conflict 31 

he soundly berated them for their conduct. But they 
answered his scolding and storming with jeers and cat- 
calls. At last he again asked, " How much will you bid 
for this first-class nigger? " This was answered by a 
simultaneous shout of "Five dollars, five dollars," and 
the roar of voices did not stop for a quarter of an hour. 
And so the battle went on. The bid did not get above 
eight dollars, and at the end of two hours of exaspera- 
ting and futile effort, the defeated auctioneer led his 
ebony charges back to the jail. Through the force of 
pubhc opinion freedom had triumphed. No pubhc 
auction of slaves was ever again attempted in St. Louis. 
But in the cries and counter cries of the auctioneer and 
that throng of freemen could be felt the pulsations of 
the coming conflict. We had before us in concrete 
form Lincoln's doctrine, that the nation cannot exist 
half slave and half free. 



CHAPTER III 

RUMBLINGS OF THE CONFLICT 

Far away to the south we now began to hear, like 
the low growling of distant thunder, a rumbling of the 
approaching conflict. Early in 1861, secession ordinances 
in quick succession were passed by the Gulf States. 
By February 1st all of them, following the lead of South 
Carolina, through the action of their respective State 
conventions, had severed their relations with the Union. 
They also forcibly seized United States forts, arsenals, 
arms, custom-houses, lighthouses and subtreasuries. 
In Texas the United States troops had been treacher- 
ously surrendered. The Federal government offered 
no resistance to those who thus trampled on its authority, 
inaugurated revolution, and resorted to acts of war. 

These hostile movements, coming before the inaugu- 
ration of the President-elect, made all classes in St. 
Louis anxiously thoughtful. To be sure a few extreme 
pro-slavery men, who were pronounced secessionists, 
heartily approved of what the Cotton States had done, 
and were secretly rejoicing over it. From prudential 
motives they refrained from open and noisy support 
of the acts of the seceding States; but most of our 
fellow-citizens, who had formerly lived in States further 
south, regarded these early acts of secession as at least 
ill-timed and precipitate, as born of thoughtless, ground- 
less hatred and blind passion. They were not at all 
prepared to join this open and violent revolt against 



Rumblings of the Conflict 33 

the Federal government, and to engage in the unlawful 
seizure of its property. And in this conservative, 
pro-slavery class lay the hope of the unconditional 
Union men of St. Louis and Missouri. If its undivided 
influence, through any motives, however diverse, could 
be directed firmly against the secession of our State, 
we might remain in the Union. 

Very few in St. Louis had at all anticipated such early, 
radical, revolutionary action on the part of the Gulf 
States, and perhaps least of all was it foreseen by those 
who were unconditionally loyal. They had fondly 
hoped that threatened secession would expend itself 
simply in violent talk ; that a second and sober thought 
would come to control the acts of the pro-slavery States; 
that the ill wind would blow over without doing any 
serious damage. They knew, to be sure, that a mes- 
senger from Alabama had, in December, visited our 
Governor and Governor-elect, urging them to join 
in a concerted secession movement of the slave States; 
that in that same month South Carolina had passed an 
ordinance of secession; but they could not believe that 
this madness would continue, that the slave States 
would generally be infected by it. To their minds 
abrupt and violent secession was so palpably foolish 
that it seemed to them impossible that it could be ap- 
proved by any large number of men in the South. 
But when in January one State after another seceded, 
and these seceded States on the 4th of February as- 
sembled by their delegates at Montgomery, Alabama, 
formed a confederacy, adopted a provisional govern- 
ment, and elected a president and vice-president, they 
unmistakably heard in the distance the angry growl 
of the coming bloody conflict.^ 

' W. R. S. 4, Vol. I, pp. 1-75. 



34 A Border City in the Civil War 

The loyal men of St. Louis turned their eyes to 
Washington, hoping that they might discern something 
there which would quiet their baleful apprehensions. 
But instead of sunshine and hope, they saw there the 
same black war-cloud. The representatives and senators 
of the seceding States were shamelessly plotting the 
overthrow of the very government in whose legislative 
councils they still continued to sit. In the Cabinet of 
the President were some who were aiding and abetting 
secession. The Secretary of War, John Buchanan 
Floyd of Virginia, had sent large detachments of the 
standing army to distant and not easily accessible 
parts of the country, and had removed large quantities 
of arms and ammunition from Northern to Southern 
arsenals, that, at the beginning of the conflict, which 
he evidently believed to be close at hand, the South 
might be better prepared for battle than the North. 
In the midst of all this treachery the chief executive 
sat nerveless. In his last annual message, he declared 
that the general government had no power to coerce 
a State. He said : " After much serious reflection, I have 
arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been 
delegated to Congress, nor to any other department 
of the Federal government." He again declared: 
" The power to make war against a State is at variance 
with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution." 
Moreover, he asserted: " Congress possesses many 
means of preserving it (the Union) by conciliation ; but 
the sword was not placed in its hand to preserve it 
by force." This message for a moment quite disheart- 
ened the loyal men of our city. The executive of a great 
nation, by his own public confession, stood powerless 
before those domestic foes that were tearing down the 
government bequeathed us by our fathers. In his 



Rumblings of the Conflict 35 

message he assured them that with impunity they could 
complete their work of dismembering the Republic. 
So for a time the secessionists seemed to have the upper 
hand all around; at Montgomery they ruled over the 
seceded States ; at Washington they subsidized to their 
own interests the Federal government; its President 
openly proclaiming that, do what they might, he had 
no constitutional power to lay upon them punitively 
even the weight of a finger. 

We had no Andrew Jackson in the presidential chair. 
In 1832, when South Carolina arrayed herself against 
the general government and proceeded to nullify its 
legislative acts, he said with an emphasis which showed 
that he was conscious of having the whole constitu- 
tional power of the nation behind him to make his 
words effective, " The Union, it must, and shall be, 
preserved;" and nullification in weakness and shame 
hid itself. If we had had such a President in December, 
1860, when South Carolina seceded, we might have 
been saved from the awful conflict that, unchecked in 
its beginning, daily gathered to itself power until it 
was almost beyond control. 

Loyal men throughout the nation utterlj^ repudiated 
the President's interpretation of the Constitution. 
The unconditional Unionists of St Louis shared the 
thoughts that were pervading and agitating the minds 
of all true patriots. But they had anxieties which were 
peculiar to all, in the border slave States, who were un- 
compromisingly loyal to the Federal government. These 
States, largely on strictly economic grounds, hesitated 
to join in the secession movement; still a large majority 
of their inhabitants were in profound sympathy with 
the underlying cause of secession, the preservation and 
perpetuation of slavery. So the absorbing thought of 



36 A Border City in the Civil War 

the uncompromisingly loyal men of St. Louis was, 
whether, in the sweep of events, they would be drawn 
with their State, against their will, into the vortex 
of secession. What could they do to avert such a dire 
calamity? They still hoped, even when hope was seem- 
ingly baseless, that as muttering storms which blacken 
the horizon often pass on and away forever, so in some 
way, hidden from their view, this rising, growling storm 
of rebellion and revolution would be finally dissipated, 
leaving the southern sky once more clear and serene. 
Nevertheless, while they were thoughtful and anxious, 
they were undaunted. There never was a band of braver 
men. The precipitate acts of the Gulf States, the dis- 
integration of the national Congress, the unrebuked 
intrigues in the Cabinet of the subservient President 
saddened, but did not terrify them. By these untoward 
and ominous events their courage was re-enforced, 
their vision cleared, their purpose made definite and 
robust. They resolved anew to resist with all their 
heart, and with all their mind, and with all their strength 
the secession of Missouri from the Union. Any that had 
been timid became suddenly courageous; any that had 
been weak became strong in spirit. These unconditional 
loyal men, surrounded by a morass of difficulties, beset 
on every side by insidious, plotting political foes, 
often utterly at a loss in whom to confide, with every- 
thing seemingly against them, at last, fully aroused and 
braced for the conflict, became the hope, and, as it 
proved, the political salvation of St. Louis and Missouri. 
They became the leaders who, by wise counsels and sane 
action, gathered around them the conservative pro- 
slavery men of the city and the commonwealth, and 
these two classes standing together saved the State 
from the disaster of secession. 



Rumblings of the Conflict 37 

The fourth of March drew near, Mr. Lincoln, in 
tender, pathetic speech, bade adieu to his neighbors 
at Springfield and hastened on to Washington. As he 
journeyed towards the national capital the loyal of 
St. Louis followed him with almost breathless interest. 
They pored over his short speeches to the crowds that 
gathered to greet him at railway stations. They were 
thrilled with his brave and patriotic utterances at 
Independence Hall in Philadelphia. In the malicious 
plot laid at Baltimore, they heard once more the rum- 
bling of the approaching conflict; and when, in his 
great inaugural address, he said, " In your hands, 
my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the 
momentous issue of civil war. The government will 
not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being 
yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered 
in Heaven to destroy the government, while / shall 
have the most solemn one ' to preserve, protect, and 
defend ' it; " we knew that, if neither the Federal 
government nor the secessionists yielded, the civil war 
of which the President spoke would inevitably burst 
upon us. 

But the rumblings of the bloody conflict were not 
heard alone in the black war-clouds that hUng threaten- 
ingly over the Gulf States and the national capital, but 
at last directly over the streets along which we daily 
walked. 

Succeeding the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln there was 
a period of silence more painful than actual battle. To 
us who were straining our eyes toward Washington, 
to see what the President, of whom we expected so 
much, was doing; who, intent, were listening that we 
might hear from his lips words of cheer and wisdom, he 
seemed to be paralyzed. We saw nothing. We heard 



38 A Border City in the Civil War 

nothing. Perhaps he was vainly hoping that those 
already in rebellion against the general government 
would yield to his eloquent appeal at the close of his 
famous inaugural. " I am loth to close. We are not 
enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds 
of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching 
from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living 
heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will 
yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, 
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 
But he could not, by any appeal however reasonable and 
urgent, persuade men in the Cotton States. It was too 
late. He could not extinguish a conflagration by pour- 
ing oil upon it. Perhaps, however, he himself had no 
hope of peace, but was noiselessly preparing for the 
inevitable conflict. But whatever was the cause of these 
days of silence, they were days of sorest trial to the loyal 
of our city. 

During all this time the secessionists were active; 
active everywhere south of Mason and Dixon's line; 
active in St. Louis. For the sake of peace in our city, 
loyal men still withheld from the public gaze the Stars 
and Stripes, but just at this time, when the Unionists 
were greatly depressed, when the tension of mind and 
heart was so great that it seemed that the addition of 
another grain would be unendurable, a rebel flag, 
attached to a wire, was hung out over Sixth Street 
near one of the central avenues of the city. The war- 
cloud was now right over our heads. From its black 
belly a thunderbolt might fall at any moment. I saw 
the whole street under that defiant, revolutionary flag 
packed with angry men. They had flocked together 
without collusion, from a spontaneous and common 



Rumblings of the Conflict 39 

impulse. They were a unit in their determination to 
tear down that symbol of revolt and destroy it. My 
whole soul was knit in sympathy with that pulsating, 
heaving, throbbing throng all aflame with patriotic pas- 
sion. But there soon appeared, mounted on a barrel, at 
the side of the street, a citizen, southern-born, and highly 
respected by all. He spoke from a full heart earnest 
words to his friends and neighbors. The din of voices 
gradually died away. The speaker was master of the 
situation. He assured that excited, indignant multi- 
tude that he was in full tide of sympathy with them, 
that he too ardently longed to tear down that insulting 
banner, but in eloquent, impassioned words he entreated 
them to bear patiently the stinging indignity offered 
to a loyal city, and not needlessly to precipitate mortal 
combat between those who had been for years neighbors 
and friends. He assured them that the secession flag 
would soon be taken down by the authority and arm 
of the government, the star-spangled banner would be 
vindicated and would float in honor and triumph over 
our streets. The quieted but resentful crowd by de- 
grees melted away and the stars and bars, oh, the shame 
of it! was left there for a few days to flutter undis- 
turbed in the breeze. It however did a good work. 
Every loyal man that saw it, determined as never 
before to stand for, and, if need be, to fight for the 
integrity of the Union. So that over-hanging, growling, 
threatening cloud did not hurl its bloody bolt among 
us. We were, in spite of it, mercifully still at peace. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BOOMERANG CONVENTION ^ 

Missouri could not escape the dreaded, impending 
conflict. She carried the elements of it within her own 
bosom. Union and disunion forces angrily faced each 
other throughout all her borders. They jostled each 
other in the streets, marts and society of St. Louis. But 
amid these strong cross-currents of opinion, she re- 
mained securely anchored to the Union. She was, to 
be sure, somewhat battered and broken, but was sur- 
prisingly kept from the disaster of disunionism, that 
overtook most of her sister slave States. It is my 
object in this chapter to show that this great State, 
probably contrary to the expectation of a majority 
of her inhabitants, was early in 1861, through the very 
machinery devised to take her out of the Union, kept 
from that destructive folly. 

When a Southern State contemplated seceding from 
the Union, first of all, through an act of its legislature, 
it provided for the creation of a sovereign Convention. 
The delegates to this Convention were duly elected by 
the people. At the appointed time they assembled, 
organized for business, and took up the question of 
secession, which they had been chosen to examine 
and decide. If they passed an ordinance of seces- 

* See, on this whole Chapter, Journal and Proceedings of the 
Missouri State Convention, 1861. 



The Boomerang Convention 41 

sion, it was believed that by such action the relations 
of the State to the Union were utterly and irrevo- 
cably severed, unless the convention determined of its 
own motion, or was required by the legislative act that 
called it into being, to submit the ordinance to the 
people to be ratified or rejected by their suffrages. 
For example, in Texas and Virginia the secession ordi- 
nances were ratified by popular vote. 

In Missouri the secession Governor, re-enforced by 
a secession legislature, early in 1861, began to devise 
measures to take the State out of the Union. He followed 
in the wake of the Cotton States. The legislature, in 
full sympathy with him, passed an act which provided 
for the calling of a State Convention. In a " Whereas," 
which precedes the sections of this act, it announced 
in fair words its "opinion," that " The condition of 
public affairs demands that a Convention of the people 
be called to take such action as the interest and wel- 
fare of the State may require." Then the act specifies 
the time and the conditions of the election of the mem- 
bers of the contemplated Convention, and specifically 
designates the subject that the Convention was expected 
to consider, viz.: "The then existing relations between 
the government of the United States, the people and 
governments of the different States, and the govern- 
ment and people of the State of Missouri, and to adopt 
such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the 
State, and the protection of its institutions as shall 
appear to them to be demanded." But this act con- 
tained one section of vital importance. It provided 
that any act of the Convention, changing or dissolving 
the political relations of Missouri "to the government 
of the United States," should not be deemed valid 
until ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the 



42 A Border City in the Civil War 

State. However, when this act became a law, neither 
the Governor nor the legislature seemed to have the 
slightest doubt that the people of the State would 
ratify by a decided majority an ordinance of secession; 
happily, no occasion ever arose for testing that question. 
Nor was the confidence entertained by the Governor 
and the legislature unfounded. They had every reason 
to believe that the same voters who had elected them, 
when appealed to, would elect a Convention that would 
favor their project of secession, and that an ordinance 
of secession submitted to them would be triumphantly 
ratified. But 

" The best laid schemes o' mice and men 
Gang aft agley." 

Still, to the secessionists at that time all things be- 
tokened certain success. Their skies looked bright. 
If there were a threatening cloud as big as a man's hand 
they did not see it. 

But too great confidence often leads men to overlook 
weaknesses in their most hopeful projects. Those who 
devised the legislative act providing for a convention, 
neglected to put into it any provision for limiting its 
continuance or life. It was made a sovereign body, and 
also the sole judge as to the time when it should adjourn 
sine die. So, as we shall see, the Governor and the 
legislature " builded better than they knew." To 
them the Convention proved to be a boomerang, but 
to the State a priceless blessing. 

This act was approved by the Governor on the 21st 
of January. The election of the members of the Con- 
vention took place on the 18th of February, and the 
Convention met, according to the provision of the act 



The Boomerang Convention 43 

by which it was created, at Jefferson City, the capital 
of the State, on February 28th, 1861. 

But if this Convention was to keep the State from 
secession as some began to hope it might, it was un- 
mistakably clear that it should not continue its deliber- 
ations at the capital of the State. Jefferson City was 
then a small, and to sojourners in it, a somewhat desolate 
place. Since the legislature was in session the Convention 
could not meet in its halls, which, for such a body, were 
the only suitable places of meeting in the city. Instead 
of that, the delegates were compelled to occupy for 
their deliberations a small, repulsive court-house. 
No desks were there provided for them. Moreover, 
the hotel accommodations were meagre and unattractive, 
and, most of all, the libraries and reading-rooms of the 
capital were about equivalent to nothing. The tallow 
candles and oil lamps which at night gave just enough 
light in the houses and on the muddy streets to make 
darkness visible, were far more luminous than the 
intellectual lights of that then cheerless place; and 
the light of the legislature then in session was darkness. 
There was at that time hardly any considerable town 
in Missouri more intellectually stagnant than its capital. 
Should the Convention carry on its deliberations there, 
its members would have few if any facilities for the 
investigation of vastly important questions that were 
certain to arise, while all the currents of influence that 
would flow in upon them, would urge them on to declare 
for secession. To all this the Union men of St. Louis, 
together with a few scattered here and there throughout 
the State, were keenly alive. Dr. Linton, a distinguished 
physician of our city, and a member of the Convention, 
said, "When I got to Jefferson City and heard nothing 
but the ' Marseillaise ' and ' Dixie ' in place of ' The 



44 A Border City in the Civil War 

Star-Spangled Banner/ I felt uneasy enough, and when 
I heard Governor Jackson speak I felt badly. . . . 
I recollect, with my colleague, Mr. Broadhead, hearing 
Dixie ' played on the streets, and that we stepped up 
to the leader of the band and asked him to play 'The 
Star-Spangled Banner; ' he said, being a foreigner, 'Me 
'fraid to play that.' We assured him that there was 
no danger, and he played one stanza of 'The Star- 
Spangled Banner,' but immediately went off into ' Dixie/ 
and of course we went off in disgust." 

The Union men of St. Louis not only saw the danger 
arising from the continuance of the Convention in 
Jefferson City, but they determined if possible to avert 
it. Having in secret seriously considered the whole 
matter, they cautiously and wisely laid their plan to 
bring the Convention to their own city. Since many 
men in the State were deeply prejudiced against St. 
Louis, regarding it as the stronghold of Free-soilism, 
it was necessary carefully to conceal the movement 
that was being made. If any delegate from St. Louis 
had openly moved that the Convention should adjourn 
to our city, the motion would undoubtedly have been 
promptly and decisively voted down. But the dele- 
gates from St. Louis, instead of making an open move, 
quietly and unobserved found some delegates from 
the country to whom they deemed it safe to make 
their suggestions, and without any knowledge of it on 
the part of the Convention these men were won to their 
ideas. When, therefore, the Convention, on the second 
day of its session, was perfecting its organization, 
Mr, Hall of Randolph County, — a strong pro-slavery 
district near the centre of the State, — moved that when 
the Convention adjourned, it should adjourn to meet 
" in the Mercantile Library Hall of ^t, Lpuis, on Monday 



, The Boomerang Convention 45 

morning next, at 10 o'clock." The motion met with 
strong opposition, but after some discussion it became 
evident that there was probably a majority in its favor. 
Still, the Convention, wishing to act prudently in a 
matter of such vital importance, inquired if it were 
certainly known that they could occupy the hall men- 
tioned in the motion of the gentleman from Randolph 
County? This brought to his feet Judge Samuel M. 
Breckinridge, a delegate from St. Louis, who said that 
at the request of some members from the country, he 
had already telegraphed to St. Louis, and had received 
an answer that the Convention could occupy without 
expense either of the two halls belonging to the Mercan- 
tile Library Association. The undivulged fact was that 
the Union men of St. Louis, days before, had arranged 
to offer to the Convention, without cost, either of these 
halls, if by any means that body could be induced to 
occupy it. At last, to remove any objection that might 
arise from pecuniary considerations, the citizens of our 
city telegraphed that the railroad fare of all the mem- 
bers of the Convention had also been provided for; 
so, at the close of the second day's session at Jefferson 
City, on March 1st, the Convention, by a decided 
majority, adjourned to meet on the following Monday, 
March 4th, at 10 a. m. in the Mercantile Librarj^ Hall 
of St. Louis; and by that move the doubt that Missouri 
would secede from the Union was greatly strengthened. 
On Monday morning, when the Convention met for 
the first time in its new quarters, its members found 
themselves in a beautiful hall, such as some of them 
had never before seen. Each member was provided 
with a desk, and pages were at hand to do his bidding, 
all at the expense of the loyal men of the city. The 
free use of the Mercantile Library and Reading Room, 



46 A Border City in the Civil War 

with its papers and periodicals from every part of the 
Union, and also of the Law Library of the city, was also 
tendered them. Then, by a secret prearrangement, 
in companies of from six to twelve, the members of 
the Convention were daily invited by Union men to 
dine with them; and, so long as the Convention con- 
tinued its sessions, in the most conservative and kindly 
way, at the tables and in the parlors of the best and 
most intelligent men and women of the city, the whole 
question of secession in all its phases was thoroughly 
discussed. By such a procedure, without arousing an- 
tagonism, deep-rooted prejudice began gradually to 
give way, and new light, unobserved, penetrated the 
minds of the members of this sovereign Convention, and, 
as one by one the days passed, the hope of the disloyal 
that Missouri would secede was constantly on the wane. 
Let us now notice the composition of this sovereign 
body, in whose hands was providentially placed the 
political destiny, not only of Missouri, but perchance 
also of the entire Republic. It had ninety-nine mem- 
bers. Of these, fifty-two were lawyers, seven of whom 
were judges. These men by their training were capable 
of clearly and firmly grasping the fundamental principles 
of law and government. Happily more than half of the 
Convention was of this class. Twenty-six were farmers, 
who from habit of thought were decidedly conservative. 
Eleven were merchants, who intuitively discerned the 
conditions that must be maintained in order to secure 
and promote the commercial prosperity of their State. 
Three were physicians, one of whom. Dr. Linton, was 
an exceptionally clear-headed and brilliant man. There 
were also one lumber dealer, one bank commissioner, 
one civil engineer, one blacksmith, one tanner, one 
leather dealer and one circuit clerk. Each of these, 



The Boomerang Convention 47 

by his pursuit, was fitted to appreciate what was neces- 
sary to secure the highest material interests of the State. 
The Convention as a whole was in ability quite above 
the average, and unmistakably superior both in intel- 
lectual and moral force to the legislature which had 
called it into being. 

Considering the vastly important question which 
the Convention was called upon to decide, it is also 
a matter of great interest to note the ages of its members. 
One man, like an elderly maiden, was coy, and refused 
to give his age; of the remaining ninety-eight, six were 
between twenty-four and thirty; twenty-one were be- 
tween thirty and forty; forty-one were between forty 
and fifty; twenty-four were between fifty and sixty; 
and six were between sixty and seventy. Most of these 
men, then, were in the maturity and vigor of manhood. 
Two-thirds of the Convention, lacking one, were between 
forty and sixty, old enough to have gotten rid of crudities 
of thinking, and the impulsiveness and rashness of young 
blood, and yet young enough to be free from the en- 
feebling touch of age. 

And since they were to deal with the question of seces- 
sion, the underlying cause of which was slavery, we 
should not fail to consider their nativity, and the influ- 
ences that surrounded them in early life, when the deep- 
est and most lasting impressions are made upon men. 
Thirty of the ninety-nine delegates to this Convention 
were born in Kentucky; twenty-three in Virginia; 
thirteen in Missouri; nine in Tennessee; three in North 
Carolina; three in New York; three in New Hampshire; 
two in Maryland; two in Pennsylvania; two in Illinois; 
one in Alabama; one in the District of Columbia; one 
in Ohio; one in New Jersey; one in Maine; one in 
Prussia; one in Bremen; one in Austria; and one in 



48 A Border City in the Civil War 

Ireland. Eighty-two were born in the South, including 
the one from the District of Columbia, while there were 
only thirteen born in the North and four in Europe. 
When we observe that more than four-fifths of the Con- 
vention had been born and brought up in slave States, 
we might rationally conclude from this surface view 
that Missouri would soon follow her seven erring sisters, 
like them secede from the Union, and link her destiny 
to the Southern Confederacy. 

Beyond question the Convention was almost unani- 
mously pro-slavery. Some of those born and educated 
in the North had become sweeping and positive in their 
advocacy of slavery. There were none in the Convention 
who did not denounce the Abolitionists, and very many 
of its members condemned with equal severity the 
Republican party. All of them, with possibly a very 
few exceptions, desired to protect and preserve the 
system of human bondage that had unhappily fastened 
itself upon the nation. But right here where there was 
so high a degree of unanimit}'', strange to say, the Con- 
vention divided. The vexed question with them was, 
" What will preserve slavery? " Some of them were 
in favor of going out of the Union to preserve it; others 
with at least equal emphasis and force urged that in 
order to preserve it Missouri must remain in the Union. 
These delegates pointed to the geographical position 
of their State ; on three sides of her were free States. If 
she should secede, she would be confronted on the east, 
north and west by a foreign nation and by hostile terri- 
tory, which would be an asylum for fugitive slaves. 
One speaker declared: " It will make a Canada of 
every Northern State, and the North will be a bourne 
from which no slave traveller will return," Such men 
vehemently urged that secession would be the inevitable 



The Boomerang Convention 49 

destruction of slavery in Missouri. If the State should 
secede, it would not be long before she would present 
to the world the anomaly of a slave State without a 
slave. To be sure, the Cotton States withdrew from 
the Union in order to preserve slavery; but even if 
the citizens of Missouri believed that they had the 
constitutional right to secede, they could not follow 
the example of the Gulf States, for if they did, they 
would blot out forever the very institution that they 
were so earnestly striving to save. So many in Missouri, 
and not a few in this Convention, reasoned. 

While, however, the Convention was divided on the 
question of the secession of the State, and, during its 
earlier sessions, how evenly divided none could tell, 
nearly all, if not all, of its members were professed 
Unionists. The people had elected them as Unionists. 
It was loudly proclaimed that Unionism had triumphed 
at the polls by from forty to sixty thousand majority. 
Nearly every man that spoke during the deliberations 
of the Convention with great vigor asserted that he was 
in favor of maintaining the Union. The Hon. Hamilton 
R. Gamble, chairman of the Committee on Federal 
Relations, in explaining to the Convention the report of 
that committee, said: " As far as my acquaintance with 
the gentlemen of this Convention extends, I know 
of no gentlemen who avow, or insinuate, or in any 
manner admit, that they entertain any unfriendly 
feeling to the Union. You may speak to any member 
of the Convention you please in reference to his position 
about the Union, and he will proclaim that he is in 
favor of the Union. How, then, in the introduction 
of this question before this body, shall I undertake to 
speak in favor of the Union, when there is a unanimity, 
an entire unanimity, among all the members upon the 



50 A Border City in the Civil War 

very view which I would endeavor to take and en- 
force ? " 

Any one unacquainted with the hair-splitting political 
doctrines of that day might have been deceived by this 
emphatic and universal profession of Unionism by the 
members of this sovereign Convention. Calhoun also 
frequently made the strongest declarations of his warm 
attachment to the Union. But neither he nor they had 
in mind the actual government formed by the people 
of the States under the Constitution, in contradistinction 
to the confederation that preceded it, but simply a 
compact of sovereign States, which having been volun- 
tarily entered into could by any State be lawfully 
terminated at will. Many in this Convention were 
conscious or unconscious disciples of Calhoun, and in 
their speeches advocated his political heresies. Their 
effusive professions of devotion to the Union deceived 
no one who was at all conversant with our political 
history. The Hon, Mr. Gamble, whose words I have 
quoted in reference to their " entire unanimity " for 
the Union, understood them perfectly, and he expatiated 
on their professions of devotion to the Union in order 
to induce them, if possible, to act in accordance with 
them, and to vote to keep Missouri in that Union for 
which they expressed such fervent love. On the surface 
there was unity; beneath the surface, contrariety. 
Some of the Convention meant by the Union a central- 
ized, sovereign government under the Constitution, 
while others meant a loose compact of sovereign States. 

And if both parties when they spoke of the Union had 
meant the same thing, which manifestly they did not, 
the phrase, "Union man," would still have been am- 
biguous. In the debates of the delegates it came out 
clearly that there were two kinds of Union men in the 



The Boomerang Convention 51 

Convention, conditional and unconditional. Mr. Sheeley 
of Independence said: " I admire this Union, and while 
perhaps I will stick in- it as long as any man in the 
Convention, who is not an unconditional Union man," 
thus openly announcing himself a conditional Union 
man. Mr. Vanbuskirk of Holt County, in an able 
speech, declared that on the part of some of the Con- 
vention, "the whole matter is brought to this point, 
that it is Union upon condition; that is. Union with 
the'buts' and'ifs,' or 'under existing circumstances.'" 
Of course that kind of Unionism was a mockery. Only 
about six months before, the rabid secessionist, Yancey 
of Alabama, had proclaimed himself to be a pre-eminent 
Union man, but declared that if Abraham Lincoln 
should be elected to the Presidency, he would favor 
immediate secession. That was being a Calhoun Union- 
ist, a Unionist according to a construction of the Con- 
stitution that was utterly at variance with John Mar- 
shall's interpretation of it. In 1861, in Missouri, when- 
ever a man said, " I am a Union man in the Constitu- 
tion," we knew for a certainty that his Unionism was 
conditional, and that he should probably be classed 
with the secessionists. 

Let us notice the conditions on which the loyalty 
of these "but" and "if" Unionists was based. First, 
they felt themselves to be under no obligation to sustain 
the Union unless the Federal government should guar- 
antee to them their rights. They meant by this, their 
rights in slave property. The people of the Northern 
States must not obstruct by legislation, or in any 
other way, the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave 
Law; in fact must aid the Southern slaveholder in re- 
capturing his fleeing property. 

In the second place, they demanded a compromise 



52 A Border City in the Civil War 

by which slavery south of 36° 30' should be protected 
in the territories. In demanding no more than this, 
many of them thought that they were making very 
generous concessions to the North, since they believed 
that, under the Constitution, the Southern slaveholder 
had the undoubted right to go into any territory of 
the United States with his human chattels, and there 
be protected in both person and slave property. 

In the third place, they announced that they would not 
sustain the Union, if the general government should 
attempt to coerce the seceded States. They declared 
that they would neither aid their seven erring sisters 
in making an attack on the Federal government, nor 
the Federal government in coercing the States that had 
left the Union. This view was urged by Mr. Howell 
on the floor of the Convention in a resolution, a part 
of which was, "We earnestly remonstrate and protest 
against any and all coercive measures, or attempts at 
coercion of said States into submission to the general 
government, whether clothed with the name or pretext 
of executing the laws of the Union, or otherwise. And 
we declare that in such contingency Missouri will not 
view the same with indifference," This resolution in- 
timated, and it came out clearly in the ensuing debate, 
that if the United States should attempt to compel 
by force the collection of the national customs in the 
South, such an act on the part of the general govern- 
ment would be regarded as coercion. This is sufficient 
to reveal the true character of the conditional Unionists. 
They affirmed emphatically, " we are in favor of keep- 
ing Missouri in the Union, if the Northern States will 
guarantee the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, 
protect slavery in the territories south of 36° 30', and 
the general government will not even in the execution 



The Boomerang Convention 53 

of the Federal laws south of Mason and Dixon's line 
use any force whatever; but if these conditions are not 
fulfilled, we are in favor of going out of the Union, and 
uniting our fortunes with the Southern Confederacy;" 
and when the Convention adjourned to St. Louis, the 
Unionism of a decided majority of its members was 
unquestionably of that conditional type. 

Since we have so fully set forth the composition and 
views of the Convention, it will be unnecessary to 
reproduce in detail its organization and proceedings. 
The Hon. Sterling Price, afterwards a Confederate 
general, was chosen president, and presided over the 
deliberations of the Convention with ability and im- 
partiality. The delegates to the Convention took an 
oath to sustain the Constitution of the United States 
and that of the State of Missouri. A strong Committee on 
Federal Relations was appointed, of which Hon. Hamil- 
ton R. Gamble, an unconditional Union man of whom 
we have already spoken, was chairman. During the 
first sittings of the Convention, numerous resolutions in 
reference to the attitude that Missouri ought to maintain 
toward the Union were introduced and referred to the 
Committee on Federal Relations; and while that 
committee was deliberating, the members of the Con- 
vention occupied the time in making speeches on the 
general subject of secession. As each one seemed 
anxious to declare himself, there was much speaking. 
Both extreme and conservative views were freely aired, 
and each day evidently added new strength to the position 
that it would be unwise for Missouri to sever her relations 
with the Union. 

There was one unique incident that profoundly stirred 
the whole Convention. The Convention of the State 
of Georgia, that passed an ordinance of secession^ 



54 A Border City in the Civil War 

sent the Hon. Luther J. Glenn as a commissioner to 
present it to the Convention of Missouri and to urge 
its delegates to enact a similar ordinance and to join 
the Southern Confederacy. He appeared at Jefferson 
City, during the proceedings of the second day of the 
Convention, and his communication from Georgia to 
the Convention was read by the Chair.^ This com- 
munication was promptly laid on the table, but the 
incident greatly disturbed all genuine Union men, 
especially since the commissioner with his secession 
message had been received with open arms by the 
Governor, and in the evening both houses of the disloyal 
legislature in joint session had listened to an address 
from him with the most manifest marks of sympathy.^ 
At the first day's session in St. Louis this communica- 
tion of the Georgia commissioner was called up, and a 
motion was made that he be invited to address the Con- 
vention. Thereupon there was hot debate. Hon. 
Sample Orr, referring to Mr. Glenn, said : " He is here 
to-day and called an ambassador by some, by others 
a commissioner. If he is an ambassador, he has missed 
the right city. He should have gone to Washington. 
If he is here as a commissioner from a sister State, 
then the oath we have taken forbids that we should 
have an alliance with any other State in the Confeder- 
acy." He meant by Confederacy, the United States. 
Mr. Smith, a delegate from St. Louis, said: " We did not 
come here to receive ambassadors from foreign States." 
But finally the Convention deemed it best on the whole 
to listen to the gentleman from Georgia, who then 
proceeded to tell the very old story of the atrocious 
conduct of the Northern abolitionists, and of the equally 

' Journal of the Missoui'i State Convention, 1861, p. 11. 
2 Snead, pp. 68-72. 



The Boomerang Convention 55 

reprehensible acts of the Chicago Convention, that 
nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency; of 
the deplorable condition of his State, on account of 
the protective tariff, that built up the North and pulled 
down the South, and that, on account of these things, 
which a long-suffering people could no longer endure, 
his State had peaceably seceded, and he was commis- 
sioned by Georgia to urge Missouri to follow her 
example.^ 

Georgia's Ordinance of Secession and the address of 
her commissioner were referred to a special committee, 
of which the Hon. John B. Henderson, the author of 
the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the 
United States,^ was chairman. On the eighteenth 
day of the sittings of the Convention, Mr. Henderson, 
slaveholder though he was, presented a comprehensive 
report recommending the rejection of the prayer from 
Georgia to secede, presented by Mr. Glenn, and urging 
the weightiest and most conclusive reasons against the 
disruption of the Union. This report was stronger 
meat than the Convention was then able to digest, 
so after a short, sharp debate it was laid on the table ^ 
and was never afterwards taken up. It did not need to 
be. It had done its work. The author of it had seized 
his opportunity to deal a staggering blow against the 
secession of Missouri, and the effect of it could not be 
neutralized. So what at first was a menace was trans- 
muted into a blessing. 

The Georgia commissioner made a vow that he 
would never buy a new hat until Missouri seceded 
from the Union. In 1900 he was still living. The 

•Journal Missouri State Convention, 1861, pp. 13-20. 
' Blaine's Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. I, p. 505. Vol. II, pp. 
202-203. 

3 Journal Missouri State Convention, 1861, pp. 248-256. 



66 A Border City in the Civil War 

silk hat that covered his obfuscated brain when he 
represented seceded Georgia before the Convention 
in St. Louis had been fixed over three times. He was 
still proud of it and of the cause that he represented 
in 1861. Whether he now lives, we do not know. He 
has died, or will die, in the faith. He was made of stern 
stuff. If he has, or when he shall have, departed to 
the land where silk hats are not needed, and from which 
no one ever secedes, every one who admires pure grit 
will heartily breathe the prayer, Requiescat in pace. 

We return now from this peculiar and important 
transaction, unexpectedly thrust upon the attention 
of the Convention from without, to notice that, by the 
time it had fairly begun its work in St. Louis, the seces- 
sion legislature which had created it, repented of what 
it had unwittingly wisely done, and began to agitate 
the question whether it had the power to repeal the 
ordinance that called the Convention into being, and 
thus permanently dissolve it. They saw of course that 
the Convention was not of their way of thinking. They 
refused to vote the necessary means for the publication 
of its proceedings. Mr. Foster of the Convention said 
in debate, " Although the legislature of Missouri 
called this body into existence, yet, sir, its complexion 
so very materially differs from the complexion of the 
legislative body, that, if they had the power, in my 
judgment, they would crush us out of existence to-day." 
To the Union men of St. Louis and the State this grow- 
ing antagonism of the two law-making bodies was a 
cheering symptom. The legislature, however, soon 
learned from its legal advisers that it could not efface 
the wisdom into which it had blindly blundered; that 
the chicken which it had so fondly hatched and fostered 
into maturity could not be put back into the shell again; 



The Boomerang Convention 57 

that, in short, there was no poHtical power in Missouri 
superior to the sovereign Convention which it had 
evoked into being, and which was now calmly and wisely 
deliberating in the great commercial city of the State. 

All parties were finally convinced that though the 
legislature had created the Convention, it could not 
destroy it. So the work of this sovereign body moved 
on undisturbed. On the eighth day of its sittings the 
Committee on Federal Relations reported through its 
chairman. In their report the Committee, with but 
partial success, detailed the political events which led 
to the secession of the Cotton States, and had raised the 
question of secession in the remaining slave States. But 
they presented with cumulative force many cogent rea- 
sons why Missouri should not follow her erring sisters 
in seceding from the Union, and finally crystallized 
their recommendations on the whole subject of secession 
in seven resolutions, the first and chief of which was, 
" That at present there is no adequate cause to impel 
Missouri to dissolve her connection with the Federal 
Union." This resolution seems to us now tame and 
timid. But a more sweeping and positive resolution 
could not have been carried through the Convention. 
Its very weakness was its strength. Its apparent 
obeisance to the doctrine of secession made it acceptable 
to many conditional Union men. When the loyal men 
of St. Louis heard it, they were lifted up with hope. 

However the Committee was not unanimous. On 
the next day some conditional Union men on the Com- 
mittee presented a minority report. Then numerous 
amendments were offered, and for eight days longer 
the debate went on, more earnest and vigorous than 
ever, but each day it was evident that the more positive 
secession sentiment was slowly vanishing, so that when 



58 A Border City in the Civil War 

on the sixteenth day of the Convention, the vote was 
taken on the resolution quoted above, while nine mem- 
bers of the Convention were absent, all present but one 
voted for it. George Y. Bast, a farmer from Rhineland, 
Montgomery County, has the unenviable distinction 
of being the minority of one that voted for the secession 
of Missouri, The other resolutions of the Committee, 
with varying majorities, were also adopted. 

On the 22d of March the Convention adjourned 
to meet on the third Monday in December following; 
but it also appointed a committee of seven, one from 
each congressional district, to whom the power was 
delegated to call the Convention together before the 
third Monday in December, if, in their judgment, the 
public exigencies demanded it. 

The reasons urged by the Convention against the 
secession of Missouri as we gather them from its reported 
proceedings, briefly stated, were these: 

First: the geographical position of Missouri. She 
was so far north that her climate was better adapted 
to the white man than to the black. Moreover, she was 
shut in on three sides by free States, into which, if 
she seceded from the Union, her slaves would flee and 
from which they could not be brought back. 

Second: she had other, and far greater interests 
than her slaves. They numbered only one hundred and 
twelve thousand, while she had within her borders 
more than one million, one hundred thousand white 
men. During the then preceding decade her slaves 
had increased twenty-five per cent; while her white 
population had increased one hundred per cent. The 
taxable value of her slaves was only forty-five million 
dollars, while that of her other property was three hun- 
dred and fifteen million dollars. Most of her slaves were 



The Boomerang Convention 59 

engaged in raising tobacco and hemp, while her white 
population, which, through immigration, was rapidly 
increasing, was developing her mining, manufacturing, 
and commercial interests. The members of her sovereign 
Convention, from whose brains the cobwebs had at last 
been swept, and whose vision had become clear, saw 
that the immigration of free white men to Missouri 
would nearly, if not wholly, cease, if the State by seces- 
sion should be placed under the political domination of 
the Confederacy, whose cornerstone had been declared 
by its brilliant Vice-President to be African slavery. 

Third: timid men were everywhere crying out for 
compromise. And most of the members of the Conven- 
tion still hugged the delusion that the political antago- 
nisms, which were then shaking the nation to its founda- 
tions, and had already severed seven States from the 
Union, might be overcome by compromise. To inaugu- 
rate measures by which such compromise might be 
effected some advocated a convention of the border slave 
States ; others of the border slave and border free States ; 
and still others of all the States, and, so long as they 
cherished hope of such a peaceful adjustment of diffi- 
culties, they thought it inexpedient for Missouri to secede. 

Fourth: most of the Convention believed that the 
seven States which had already seceded had been 
carried out of the Union by ambitious politicians; 
that the people had not been permitted fairly and fully 
to discuss the question of secession, and freely to cast 
their ballots for or against it. During the deliberations 
of the Convention extreme Southern politicians, like 
Yancey of Alabama, were roundly and bitterly de- 
nounced. Moreover, the State pride of the Missourians 
had been deeply stung by the seceded States. Those 
States, they affirmed, had rudely snapped the tie which 



60 A Border City in the Civil War 

bound them to the Union, without an}'^ consultation with 
the border slave States, and then after they were out 
of the Union and had gone so far as to set up a Southern 
Confederacy, they complacently turned around and 
invited the States whose counsels they had ignored to 
join them. Missouri felt that she should have been 
consulted before secession was enacted, and some strong 
pro-slavery members of the Convention declared in 
unmistakable terms that they were utterly opposed to 
following the cotton lords of the South Atlantic and 
Gulf States. Thus the precipitancy of the hot-headed 
Southern politicians became no inconsiderable element 
of the force which kept Missouri in the Union. 

But there is reason for grave doubt if even all these 
considerations combined would have led to this result, 
if the Convention had continued its deliberations at 
Jefferson City. It was well known that the object 
of the Governor and the legislature in creating the 
Convention was to secure the secession of the State. 
Had it continued its sittings at the State capital, the 
influences by which it would have been surrounded 
would probably have incited its members to enact an 
ordinance of secession. But the adjournment to vSt. 
Louis at once awakened a reasonable hope of a better 
outcome. The delegates were now surrounded by an 
entirely different atmosphere. They met in that city 
the highest intelligence and the staunchest loyalty in 
the State. They were mightily impressed with the fact 
that scores of men there who had formerly been slave- 
holders in the South were unflinchingly loyal to the 
old flag. Gradually they came to see that secession 
antagonized all the commercial, educational, and moral 
interests of the State; that it was, in short, a suicidal 
policy. As they deliberated day by day, even those 



The Boomerang Convention 61 

who had been the warmest advocates of such a policy 
began to waver. Every day their vision grew clearer 
and truer. Even the president of the Convention, who 
so soon afterwards became a commander of Confederate 
troops, for the nonce, seemed to be a genuine Union 
man, and when the vote was taken on the question of 
secession, as we have already noted, only one man could 
be found in the entire Convention, who had the hardi- 
hood to vote against the resolution, that it was not just 
then expedient for Missouri to secede from the Union, 

The victory was won. It was a momentous victory. 
Who won it? A little band of intrepid Union men, 
men of whom, with perhaps two exceptions, the nation 
at large knew little or nothing. They had come together 
in St. Louis from every part of the Republic and from 
foreign countries. That city was their adopted home. 
They had largely laid aside the prejudices that they 
brought with them from their former places of 
abode. Their contact with each other had made them 
larger, grander men. Upon them unexpectedly a day 
of darkness had fallen. Dangers thickened around 
them, but the very perils which beset them united their 
hearts in unswerving, burning loyalty to the Union. 
At last the only hope of keeping their State in the Union 
was the sovereign Convention called into being for the 
very purpose of taking it out of the Union. So, before 
God, they firmly resolved to use as well as they could 
the unpropitious instrument made ready to their hand. 
They could not directly control the deliberations and 
votes of the Convention. Forbidding as the prospect 
seemed to be, there was hope, however, if this sovereign 
body could be induced to carry on its deliberations 
in their adopted city. They must invite the Convention 
to do this. Not openly; such publicity would utterly 



62 A Border City in the Civil War 

defeat their purpose. They must work in secret. For- 
tunately some of their own number were members of 
the Convention. They were good men and wise and 
true. They did their delicate work with skill. The 
Convention, apparently self-moved, came to St. Louis. 
It deliberated there. Missouri stayed in the Union. 

What was the significance of this outcome to the 
nation at large? It had a mighty influence in keeping 
Kentucky, West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland in 
the Union. It cheered and strengthened our wise, 
conservative, patriotic President, whose manifold per- 
plexities and vast responsibilities pressed upon him 
like the superincumbent weight of a mountain. It put 
into the Union army more than one hundred and nine 
thousand men, of whom more than eight thousand were 
colored,^ besides the Home Guards in every consider- 
able town of the State. It is probable, however, that 
part of this number, even if the State had seceded, 
would have found its place in the Union ranks ; but the 
doctrine of State rights was so dominant that probably 
at least seventy-five thousand of that number would 
have followed the State and helped fight the battles 
of the Southern Confederacy. It is quite possible that 
this great military force added to the Federal army 
really decided the conflict in favor of the Union; and 
that when some future historian impartially surveys 
the whole field, he may be constrained to affirm that 
a band of patriotic men, most of them unknown to 
fame, in a border city, on the western bank of the 
Mississippi River, confronted with apparently insur- 
mountable obstacles, by prudent, decisive action, not 
only saved their State from the madness of secession, 
but the whole Union from irretrievable disruption. 

* The State of Missouri by Williams, pp. 545-546. 




TIIE AKSENAL, ST. I.OUIS, IN ISliC 



[I'uye 63 



CHAPTER V 

THE FIGHT FOR THE ARSENAL 

The United States Arsenal was situated in the south- 
ern part of the city by the river. It contained nearly 
thirty thousand percussion-cap muskets, about one 
thousand rifles, some cannon unfit for use, a few hundred 
flint-lock muskets, and a large quantity of ammunition.^ 
It was the settled policy of the seceding States to seize 
the United States arsenals and arms within their bound- 
aries. So those, who were now trying to force Missouri 
out of the Union, were intent on following the per- 
nicious example of the seceded States. Moreover, our 
secession Governor was about to call out the militia 
of the State and put it under military drill; the militia 
would need arms and ammunition; both were in the 
Arsenal; why should not these citizen soldiers have 
them? Why should the sovereignty of the United 
States override the sovereignty of Missouri? So seces- 
sionists reasoned. 

And the fight for the Arsenal began early. Each 
party saw clearly that those who held it would hold 
the city, and those who held the city would hold 
the State. So all eyes were riveted on the coveted 
prize. Isaac H. Sturgeon, a Kentuckian by birth, 
was Assistant United States Treasurer at St. Louis. 

1 Snead in "The Fight for Missouri," p. 110, says there were in 
the Arsenal sixty thousand muskets. For this I find no authority. 



64 A Border City in the Civil War 

He belonged to the southern right wing of the Mis- 
souri Democracy. He consorted with secessionists. 
He heard their plans for seizing the Arsenal, and as 
the Subtreasury vaults contained four hundred thou- 
sand dollars in gold, he began to fear that they might 
also seize that. He therefore wrote a cautious letter 
to President Buchanan, setting forth the facts of the 
case, and suggesting that it might be wise to send a 
company of soldiers to guard the money belonging to 
the United States. The President turned this letter 
over to General Scott, who forthwith sent Lieutenant 
Robinson to St. Louis with a detachment of forty men 
and ordered that they be placed at the disposal of the 
Assistant Treasurer. They arrived on the 11th of 
January, and were quartered in the Government Build- 
ing. Here, in addition to the Subtreasury, were the 
Post-office, the Custom-house and the Federal Courts. 
The report that Federal soldiers, under the control of 
the Assistant Treasurer, were on guard over the Sub- 
treasury, flew like wild-fire over the entire city. To 
put it mildly, the excitement was intense. The papers 
sent out extras, that were carried by running, yelHng 
boys to almost every house. A great angry, vociferating 
crowd packed the narrow streets on which the Govern- 
ment Building stood. They hurled dire threats of 
vengeance against the United States, the President, 
the general of the army and Mr. Sturgeon, that recreant 
States-rights democrat. Some of the crowd were red, 
some pale, with anger; they were hot for a fight. But 
nobody was in any special danger; their rage would 
unquestionably soon have spent itself in angry yells 
and in the shaking of empty fists; but in order to calm 
the secession mind, General Harney, the department 
commander, ordered Robinson and his detachment 



The Fight for the Arsenal 65 

of soldiers to the Arsenal. As they went thither the 
tempest subsided, and no bones were broken. 

But brief as the excitement was, it invaded the capital 
of the State, and agitated the lawmakers there. A grave 
and reverend State Senator forthwith offered some 
resolutions, in which he characterized " this act of 
the administration " at Washington " as insulting to the 
dignity and patriotism of this State," and asked the 
Governor " to inquire of the President what has induced 
him to place the property of the United States within 
this State in charge of an armed Federal force ? " 

Since, however, the excitement was over in St. Louis, 
these resolutions were never passed; and it is now 
difficult for us to believe that a sane legislator should 
ever have felt it incumbent upon him to protest 
against the guarding of United States property by an 
armed Federal force. But so good men thought and 
felt then. 

The incident at the Government Building, which 
aroused such passion both in our city and throughout 
the State, was a side-light which revealed the settled 
determination of the secessionists to get control of 
all United States property on the sacred soil of 
Missouri. Perhaps the fears of Mr. Sturgeon for the 
safety of the Subtreasury — fears that had been 
awakened by the declarations of the secessionists with 
whom he consorted — may have been groundless, but 
there was no mistake in reference to the determination 
of the disloyal to get into their possession, at the earliest 
possible moment, the Arsenal and all that it contained. 

To understand the fight for the Arsenal, it will be 
necessary for us to get before our minds as clearly as 
possible some of the principal characters that directed 
and. controlled it. The first to claim our attention, 



66 A Border City in the Civil War 

though at the beginning of the contest subordinate 
in mihtary rank is Captain, afterwards Brigadier- 
General, Nathaniel Lyon. He was a native of Connecti- 
cut, and a graduate of West Point. He had served 
with distinction in Florida, and in the Mexican War, 
brilliantly as an Indian fighter in northern California, 
and with moderation and wisdom in Kansas, when that 
territory was harassed by the lawless incursions of 
border ruffians. He was forty-two years old, just in 
his prime. He was only five feet seven inches in height. 
He was thin and angular, rough and rugged in appear- 
ance. He had deep-set, clear blue eyes, sandy hair and 
reddish-brown stubby beard. What he was in mind and 
heart, unfolding events soon clearly revealed. He 
reported for duty at the Arsenal about February 2d. 
He at once made himself familiar with its history. 
He learned that Major William H. Bell, by birth a North 
Carolinian, a graduate of West Point in 1820, had been 
its commander for several years; that the major, aside 
from his duties as an oflficer of the United States army, 
had amassed quite a fortune in our city in town lots 
and suburban property, and had come to regard St. 
Louis as his home; that his sympathies had been with 
the extreme pro-slavery men of Missouri; that in Janu- 
ary he had pledged himself to General Frost that while 
he would defend the Arsenal against all mobs, he would 
not defend it against State troops ; that as late as Jan. 
24th, Frost had written this to Governor Jackson, at 
the same time claiming that Bell was in accord with 
them; that on the same day, to the honor of the military 
service of the United States, Bell had been removed 
from his command and ordered to report at New York; 
that he had refused to obey this order, and, instead, 
had had the good sense to resign his commission 



The Fight for the Arsenal 67 

and retire to his farm in St. Charles County, 
Missouri. 

So at the start, the real situation of affairs in our city 
was opened up to Captain Lyon. 

He was now associated in military duty with Brigadier- 
General William Selby Harney and Major Peter V. 
Hagner. The former was the commander of the Depart- 
ment of the West. He was more than sixty years old, 
having been born in 1798. He was a Southerner; 
Louisiana was his native State. He had had large 
experience as a soldier in the Mexican War, and as an 
Indian fighter both in Florida and on the plains. He 
had acquitted himself with distinction as the com- 
mander of the military Department of the Pacific Coast. 
For several years he had lived in Missouri. And now 
in this time of stress no one could successfully question his 
patriotism, and unswerving loyalty to the Union; 
but he was so interlinked with Southern families, both 
by blood and friendships of long standing, that he 
was unfitted to command where grave and delicate 
questions, involving old neighbors and intimate friends, 
were constantly arising. So at last, without any stain 
on his honor, he was called by his government to serve 
in another field. 

The latter. Major Hagner, was the successor of Major 
Bell in the command of the Arsenal. Washington, the 
national capital, was his birthplace. He too was a 
graduate of West Point and was older than Lyon. 
He was five years Lyon's senior in service. But as to 
whether Hagner really outranked Lyon there was room 
for difference of opinion. Hagner had served in the 
ordnance department of the army, where promotions 
were slower than in the infantry, to which Lyon belonged. 
Lyon's commission as captain in the regular army 



68 A Border City in the Civil War 

was twenty days earlier than Hagner's; but Hagner, 
having received in 1847 the brevet rank of major, 
claimed to outrank him. Under this Lyon was restive. 
He saw at a glance what must be done if Missouri was 
to be kept in the Union. He was persuaded that Hagner 
was unequal to the demand made upon him by the 
exigencies of the hour. So, on the ground of the priority 
of his commission as captain, he claimed the right 
to supreme command. When his claim was denied, 
first, by Gen. Harney, and then by President Bu- 
chanan and Gen. Scott, he chafed under the decision 
of his superiors. He did not, however, sulk in his tent; 
he was too patriotic for that ; yet, in his correspondence, 
he vigorously and somewhat ungraciously criticized those 
who differed from him. 

While his superiors in command at St. Louis were 
both men of undoubted loyalty to their government, 
they did not have the same point of view that he had. 
He was originally a Connecticut democrat. In 1852 
he had enthusiastically advocated the election of 
Franklin Pierce to the Presidency. But he was sent to 
do military duty in Kansas, while the people there were 
struggling in opposition to pro-slavery men from Missouri 
to make Kansas a free State. There his political views 
were almost completely changed. The full tide of his 
sympathy flowed out to the Free-State men and to the 
negro. He then and there became convinced that two 
civilizations so diametrically opposed to each other 
could not continue to exist peacefully under the same 
flag. He saw the coming of the inevitable conflict, and 
he was ready, not to say eager, for it. 

While Harney was not in sympathy with Lyon's 
political views, he nevertheless showed that he admired 
him both as an officer and as a man; but between Lyon 



The Fight for the Arsenal 69 

and Hagner there was but little if any real fellowship. 
Lyon therefore formed his friendly associations in the 
city, outside the Arsenal. His political views led him 
into the company of such men as Frank P. Blair, our 
brilliant congressman and aggressive free-soil leader; 
Oliver D. Filley, our popular mayor, a New Englander 
by birth and education; John How, a Pennsylvanian, 
a member of the Union Safety Committee; and others 
of the same ilk, whose trumpets never gave an uncertain 
sound in reference to the maintenance of the Union. 
These uncompromising loyalists at once saw in Lyon 
the man for the hour and the place, and he saw in them 
men who would do all in their power to help him realize 
his aims. He frequently visited the rendezvous of the 
Wide-A wakes, now, under the lead of Blair, transformed 
into Home Guards. He encouraged them in their work, 
suggested plans for their more perfect organization, and 
often personally drilled them in the manual of arms. 
They needed muskets. Blair thought that they should 
be armed from the Arsenal ; and while this was contrary 
to the letter of the law, Lyon was in full accord with 
Blair. 

In view of threatened attacks on the Arsenal, Lyon 
urged Hagner to fortify it. He refused. He then 
urged him to arm the Home Guards; this he regarded 
as illegal, and from his point of view justly decided 
against it. Not that Lyon was lawless, but his reasoning 
was, a law that was made to preserve the Republic 
must not be obeyed when such obedience would destroy 
the Republic. In such a case obedience to the letter 
of the law would be disobedience to its spirit. He held 
that the commandant at the Arsenal was bound to 
defend it at all hazards, and by all means within his 
reach, since on the holding of it depended the political 



70 A Border City in the Civil War 

destiny of Missouri. Nothing must stand in the way of 
securing an end so transcendently important. Laws 
good and wholesome in the " weak piping time of 
peace," for the highest public good may be held in 
abeyance in a time of revolt against constituted author- 
ity. But this captain, all aflame with patriotism, and 
so impatient of restraint, must still wait a little 
longer before unhindered he can do his appointed 
work. 

The first of February, Blair went to Washington and 
in person urged President Buchanan to give Lyon the 
supreme command of the Arsenal; but neither he nor 
General Scott would consent to this, having full confi- 
dence in Harney and Hagner. But a serious disturbance 
around the headquarters of the Minute Men, or organized 
secessionists, which threatened the peace of the whole 
city, led Harney, on March 13th, to give the command 
of the troops at the Arsenal to Lyon, while Hagner 
was still permitted to retain his command over the 
ordnance stores. Nothing could have been more 
impractical and absurd. The Arsenal now had two 
heads; one over the troops, the other over the arms. 
If the two had been in perfect accord, the double- 
headed arrangement might have worked efficiently; 
but in all their thinking and methods they were at sword's 
points with each other. But strange to say, out of this 
apparent deadlock of authority came deliverance. 

This anomalous state of affairs, seemingly so favorable 
to the secessionists, together with a legislative act 
expressly in their interest, resulted in their discom- 
fiture. In March, the secession lawmakers at Jefferson 
City, disappointed and incensed because the Convention 
at St. Louis had voted that, for the present, at least, 
it was inexpedient for the State to secede from the 



The Fight for the Arsenal 71 

Union, determined if possible to neutralize, or to over- 
turn, this reasonable and wise decision. They saw 
clearly that if in any way they could get control of St. 
Louis, they could through it, in spite of the Convention, 
control the State. They thought that if the police of 
the city could by some device be put under the juris- 
diction of their secession Governor, there would be a 
rational and strong hope of uniting the destiny of St. 
Louis and Missouri with that of the Southern Con- 
federacy. Swayed by this thought, and intensely 
anxious to realize it, they framed and passed an act, 
authorizing the Governor to appoint four commissioners, 
who, together with the mayor, should have absolute 
control of the police, of the local voluntary militia, 
of the sheriff, and of all other conservators of the peace. 
This act virtually threw the whole police force of the 
city into the hands of the Governor, and seemed also 
to put under his absolute control not only the ordinary 
local volunteer militia, but also the Minute Men, and 
Wide-Awakes or Home Guards of St. Louis. On the 
heel of this sweeping and radical legislation came the 
municipal election of April 1st, when Daniel G. Taylor, 
a plastic, conditional Union man, openly opposed to 
Lincoln's administration and to the coercion of the 
South, was elected mayor by a majority of two thousand 
six hundred and fifty-eight over John How, a very 
popular, unconditional Union man. In the preceding 
February, when the city chose delegates to the Conven- 
tion, the unconditional Union men had triumphed by a 
majority of full five thousand; but now we had elected 
a mayor who would play into the hands of our disloyal 
Governor. The cause of this backset it was difficult 
to discover; and the alarming thing about it all was that 
with a pliant mayor under the thumb of our foxy 



72 A Border City in the Civil War 

Governor we seemed to be in the tightening grip of the 
secessionists. 

The Governor, under the recent enactment of the 
legislature, now appointed the police commissioners. 
In doing this he carried into effect this new and per- 
nicious statute both in its letter and spirit. He had 
probably originally suggested it. At all events it was 
evidently a legislative act after his own heart. Under 
it he named as commissioners three of the most out- 
spoken, virulent secessionists in the city, and a man 
of Northern birth, who was strongly opposed to any 
attempt to coerce seceded States. At the head of this 
interesting quartette stood Basil Wilson Duke, the 
acknowledged leader of the Minute Men, the organized 
secessionists of St. Louis. This man inspired those 
who hung out a rebel flag over their rendezvous on Pine 
Street, and defied the Union men of the city. He was 
a man of ability and conviction. He fought for what 
he believed to be right. Like the Governor that ap- 
pointed him, he regarded the coming of United States 
troops, even for the purpose of defending United 
States property, as an invasion of the State that should 
be met and repelled by force. 

But out of apparent defeat came victory; out of the 
gloom light streamed. Lyon at the Arsenal was un- 
daunted. While he chafed under his limitations, he 
used energetically all the power that he had. Rightly 
regarding the holding of the Arsenal as of paramount 
importance, he declared, perhaps unwisely, that if the 
secessionists attempted to seize it, he would issue arms 
to the Home Guards and other Union men, and if 
Hagner interfered he would "pitch him into the river." 
Harney, at last convinced that right there in St. Louis 
war was imminent, enlarged the powers of Lyon so that 



The Fight for the Arsenal 73 

for the time being he had supreme command over the 
arms at the Arsenal as well as over the soldiers. 

Lyon now, as a precautionary measure, patrolled 
the streets beyond the Arsenal, and planted his artillery 
on the bluffs above it. Against this the police com- 
missioners protested, but Lyon would not budge. So 
they appealed to Harney. For the sake of peace he 
ordered the patrols back into the limits of the Arsenal, 
and forbade Lyon to issue arms to any one without his 
consent. This reactionary and disheartening movement 
on the part of Harney soon made Lyon the master of 
the situation. Blair appealed for relief to the Secretary 
of War, who at once summoned Harney to Washington. 
In obeying this summons on the 23d of April, he 
temporarily retired from his command. 

Lyon had now what he and Blair had so intensely 
desired, supreme command at the Arsenal. He at once 
re-enforced it. He fortified it. All approaches to it 
were vigilantly guarded. Lyon was now empowered 
by the Federal government to arm the Home Guards; 
to raise and arm additional regiments and muster them 
into the United States' service. So the battle within 
the Arsenal for the Arsenal was at last won. But what 
of the battle for it without? 

Taken as a whole, the city at this time was tossed 
and torn with doubt and fear. That there was 
a mighty struggle on the part of the disloyal, in 
some way to get possession of the Arsenal, we all 
knew. How many of them there were, and what 
were their resources, we could not with any certainty 
ascertain. Our imaginations were often active. When 
we retired at night we thought it at least possible that, 
by some strategic stroke, we might wake up in the morn- 
ing and find our city turned over into the hands of the 



74 A Border City in the Civil War 

secessionists. The very indefiniteness of the force 
which threatened us made our situation pecuHarly 
weird, and filled us at times with apprehension. This 
hostile force was as vague and indeterminate as the 
shadowy power that passed before Eliphaz, concerning 
which he said (Job 4: 12): 

" Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received 

a whisper thereof. 
In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep f alleth 

on men, 
Fear came upon rae, and trembling, which made all my bones to 

shake. 
Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh 

stood up : 
It stood still, but T could not discern the form thereof." 

Not that we feared for our personal safety. But 
we were often anxious lest the city, by some secret 
move, should be swept into the maelstrom of secession. 
True men could not help being anxious. Ugly rumors 
filled the air. The Post-ofhce, the Custom-house, the 
Subtreasury, the Arsenal were all about to be seized. 
At last, on April 12th, the whole nation, North and South, 
burst into flame. Beauregard was bombarding Fort 
Sumter. Hostilities had not been formally declared. 
Without any preannouncement, the dread conflagration 
of war began to sweep over the land. But after all, this 
was but fanning into fiercer flame the fire that was 
already burning. For several months the seceding 
States had been committing acts of war in seizing 
the property of the United States. From the strong 
desire of averting armed conflict, such acts had been 
overlooked by the Federal authorities. The nation had 
been hoping for a peaceful solution of its difficulties. 



The Fight for the Arsenal 75 

But now the belching cannon at Charleston, the very- 
nest of secession, had swept away the last hope of peace. 
Every ear in St. Louis was attent. The shameful 
end came all too soon. The Old Flag, around which 
clustered so many glories, was lowered before a disimion 
army. On the 14th of April those brave troops that 
had so gallantly defended the fort marched out with the 
honors of war. There was now no longer any hesitation 
at the White House. The President's call for seventy-five 
thousand men to put down the rebellion rang out 
trumpet-tongucd all over the Republic. The lines that 
had separated political parties faded away. Persons 
of all shades of political opinion ralUed as one man to 
save the Union. 

To depict the effect in St. Louis of the capture of Fort 
Sumter and the President's call for volunteer troops 
would require an abler pen than mine. At first the 
Union men were silent, but their thoughts were hot 
within them. The fall of Sumter stirred them to 
indignation; the call of the President inflamed their 
patriotism and strengthened their hope. Most of their 
secession neighbors for a time were also silent. They 
too were agitated by conflicting emotions. While the 
lowering of the Old Flag at the behest of Beauregard's 
thundering guns lighted up their faces with smiles, 
they hotly protested against Lincoln's call for troops 
as an invasion of State rights. But these national 
events that had so suddenly come upon us, producing in 
the minds of our fellow-citizens such varied and antago- 
nistic effects, greatly intensified the determination of 
both Unionists and secessionists. Each party now 
began to struggle as never before to gain its end. And 
the immediate purpose of the one was to seize, and of 
the other to hold, the Arsenal. 



76 A Border City in the Civil War 

Men of the same race, the same nation, the same State, 
the same city, hot with passion, stood face to face. 
One party declared: " Come what may, we will take the 
Arsenal." The other responded: " At all hazards we 
will defend and retain it." But those who determined 
to get possession of it did not yet understand the ability 
and resourcefulness of the officer who at last had secured 
supreme command over it. He was cool and clear- 
headed. He saw intuitively the manifold dangers by 
which he and his command were beset. He penetrated 
the designs of our acute and wily Governor. He un- 
earthed his correspondence with the Confederate author- 
ities at Montgomery. He also discovered what was going 
on in the rebel rendezvous of the city. He unerringly 
detected and unravelled the plots of the disloyal. Just 
how he did these things, no one knew. But his appre- 
hension of what his enemy was doing was but the means 
to the end. When he made a discovery he knew just 
what to do. And in executing his plans he was resolute 
and decisive. In him, purpose and deed were yoked 
together, thought was crowned with act. He was 
admired and trusted by the loyal, but distrusted, 
feared and hated by the disloyal. 

Even while he was in subordinate command, as early 
as April 16th, with perhaps unjustifiable officiousness, 
he had written to Governor Yates of Illinois, that it 
might be well for him " to make requisition for a large 
supply of arms, and get them shipped from the Arsenal 
to Springfield." ^ Governor Yates, acting on his sug- 
gestion, made the requisition. But the execution of the 
enterprise was difficult and dangerous. Secession spies 
swarmed in the neighborhood of the Arsenal. Every- 
thing done there was promptly reported to the disloyal 

» W. R. S. 1, Vol. I, p. 667 ; also W, R, S, 3, Vol. I, p. 80. 



The Fight for the Arsenal 77 

of the city in their various places of meeting. These 
segregated secessionists grew more and more deter- 
mined, come what might, to make the coveted Arsenal 
their own. A rumor also got afloat that the Governor 
had ordered two thousand of his militia down from 
Jefferson City to assist the secessionists in seizing it, 
and that he had determined to plant cannon on the 
heights above it and bombard it. And even if the rumor 
were merely a creation of the imagination, it was none 
the less effective on that account. It now became doubly 
clear that if the munitions of war at the Arsenal were to 
be delivered from constant liability of seizure, no time 
should be lost in removing them to Springfield, Illinois. 
In this Captain Lyon and Governor Yates were agreed. 
To make sure the safe delivery of them at Springfield, 
Governor Yates summoned to his aid Captain James H. 
Stokes, late of the regular army. He chose the right 
man for this delicate and hazardous undertaking. 
Under the direction of the United States authorities, he 
commissioned him to remove ten thousand muskets 
from the Arsenal in St. Louis to the capital of Illinois. 
To accomplish this work Captain Stokes chartered the 
steamer "City of Alton." She was, however, to remain 
at Alton until called for. 

In the meantime, Stokes, in citizen's dress, came 
quietly and unobserved to St. Louis. When he went 
to the Arsenal, he found it surrounded by a crowd 
of sullen, resolute secessionists. At first he was unable 
even to work his way through the compact throng; 
but by patience and good nature he finally elbowed 
his way to the coveted fortress and handed to Captain 
Lyon the requisition from Governor Yates. At first 
Lyon doubted if it were possible at that time to meet 
it, but promptly decided that, if it could be met at all, 



78 A Border City in the Civil War 

there must be no delay in action. Both Lyon and Stokes 
were resourceful. The latter sent a spy into the secession 
camp. He met him at a designated time and place, 
and through him learned every move that the seces- 
sionists proposed to make. On the 25th of April, 
a little more than twent3^-four hours after his arrival, 
he telegraphed the "City of Alton" to drop down 
to the Arsenal landing about midnight. He then re- 
turned to the Arsenal and, with the help of the soldiers 
there, began moving the boxes of muskets from the 
upper to the lower floor. When this work had been 
done, he sent some boxes of old flint-lock muskets up 
the bank of the river, as if he intended to ship them 
by some steamboat lying at the levee; but it was merely 
a blind to divert attention from his real enterprise. 
The secessionists eagerly followed and seized these 
almost worthless guns; thinking that they had secured 
a rich prize, they made night hideous by their boisterous 
rejoicing. A few of them, however, still hung round the 
Arsenal. These Captain Lyon arrested and locked up. 
Between eleven and twelve o'clock the "City of 
Alton" tied up at the landing. The seven hundred 
men in the Arsenal quickly put aboard of her the ten 
thousand muskets demanded. Captain Stokes then 
urgently asked permission to empty the Arsenal of all 
guns except those that were immediately needed to arm 
the volunteers that Lyon was gathering around him. 
He was told to go ahead. With marvellous celerity, 
he then put aboard the steamer ten thousand more 
muskets, five hundred new rifle carbines, five hundred 
revolvers, one hundred and ten thousand musket 
cartridges, and a considerable quantity of miscellaneous 
war material. Seven thousand muskets were left to arm 
the St. Louis volunteers. 



The Fight for the Arsenal 79 

When in hot haste the steamer had been loaded, the 
word was given to push off from the landing; but she 
could not be moved. The boxes of muskets had been 
piled up around the engine-room to guard it against any 
shot that might be sent from the battery planted by 
our plausible Governor for the defence of the State on 
the levee above, and their weight had pressed the prow 
of the steamer down into the clay of the river-bank, and 
she stuck fast. Such a moment would have paralyzed 
many men; but the undaunted Stokes was cool and 
equal to the occasion. He cried to his energetic helpers, 
" Move the boxes aft." With right good will the order 
was obeyed. Two hundred boxes of muskets were 
quickly carried astern, when the steamer's prow was 
lifted free from the clay and she floated out upon deep 
water. " Which way? " said the captain of the "City 
of Alton." Stokes replied, "Out to the channel of the 
river, then north to Alton." " But," said Captain 
Mitchell of the steamer, "what if the battery on the 
levee fires upon us? " "We will defend ourselves," 
said Stokes. " What if they beat us? " asked Mitchell. 
" Push her to the middle of the river and sink her," 
replied Stokes. "I'll do it," said Mitchell. On he 
steamed. He came abreast the battery; he passed it. 
Cannoneers and cannon seemed to be asleep. There 
was no sound from human or brazen throat. Plash, 
plash went the steamer's wheels; on, on she ploughed 
through the murky waters, and at five in the morning 
reached her destination. 

As soon as she touched the landing at Alton, Captain 
Stokes ran to the market-house and rang the fire-bell. 
The inhabitants roused from their morning slumbers, 
came pouring out of their houses, some of them 
half-dressed, to fight fire as soon as they found it. 



80 A Border City in the Civil War 

The Captain told them, "There is no fire; but at the 
landing is that steamer which you all know; it is now 
loaded with arms and ammunition from the Arsenal 
at St. Louis; to get them we outwitted and of course 
disappointed the secessionists; they may pursue us; 
so we wish as speedily as possible to get these guns to 
the capital of your State. Will j^ou help us carry them 
from the 'City of Alton' to these empty freight- 
cars? " With a shout that rolled across the Father 
of Waters to the opposite shore, men, women, and 
children laid hold of this hard task. They tugged at 
the heavy boxes of muskets, carrying, dragging, wheeling 
them. Their enthusiasm rose every moment to a higher 
pitch; and just as the clock struck seven the work was 
done. The cargo of the steamer was on the cars. The 
doors were shut and padlocked. The locomotive 
whistled, the bell rang, the steam puffed, the wheels 
moved, on went the ponderous train with its coveted 
load amid the shouts and huzzas of the patriotic Alton- 
ians.^ Nor did they forget that morning their own 
martyred Lovejoy, who, fighting against slavery and 
for the freedom of the press, poured out his blood on the 
same spot where they then stood; and that his blood 
so ruthlessly spilled foretokened the awful conflict into 
which the whole nation was then rapidly drifting. 

When the morning of April 26th dawned, to say 
that the secessionists of St. Louis were unhappy would 
be an inadequate expression of their mental state. 
They then discovered that they had immoderately 
exulted over a few worthless, flint-lock muskets; and 
that while they had shouted, most of the arms for which 
they had been scheming, had, in the darkness, slipped 
forever beyond their reach. When they fully appre- 

> Moore's Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 44. Also Doc, p. 147-8. 



The Fight for the Arsenal 81 

hended that they had been artfully outwitted, their 
mortification was unbounded. Covered with shame, 
they crept into their holes. That night's work by Lyon 
and Stokes was decisive and pivotal. On it the political 
destiny of St. Louis seemed to turn. Every day there- 
after both the Arsenal and city grew more and more 
secure, and volunteers to defend the city gathered in 
ever increasing numbers. 

The foundation for this volunteer movement had been 
laid weeks before. In February, or early in March, 
many of our most influential loyal citizens petitioned 
the Minute Men or secessionists to lay down their 
arms, to quit their rendezvous, and to dissolve all their 
military organizations, promising if they would do 
this, that the Wide-A wakes or Union men would do the 
same. This very earnest petition was for the purpose of 
maintaining peace within the city; but the secessionists 
rejected it with scorn. So some days later a regiment 
of Wide-A wakes appeared on the streets, bearing on 
their shoulders bright, burnished muskets. These were 
the guns of which we have before spoken, that were 
sent as plaster casts to our Art Exhibition. Most of 
this regiment were ready, when the call came, to enter 
the volunteer service of the Ignited States. Many 
Germans of the city eagerly volunteered. Soon Cap- 
tain Lyon had over three thousand men from St. 
Louis, all well armed and under drill. The number 
continued to swell till all anxiety for the safety of the 
Arsenal at last died away. 

Now, however, a strange phenomenon arrested our 
attention. Many of those who were bent on forcing 
Missouri out of the Union, for the time being relaxed 
all effort. They seemed to have given up the contest. 
What led them thus to lay aside their open belligerency? 



82 A Border City in the Civil War 

We were able soon to solve this mystery. It had been 
often and confidently asserted that the Federal govern- 
ment was to send, from the adjoining free States, several 
thousand men to defend the Arsenal and other property 
of the United States. A little later some regiments 
from Illinois came. This wrought up the secessionists 
to fever heat. To their minds the introduction of troops 
from other States was an outrageous invasion of State 
sovereignty. 

Moreover there had been for several weeks a persistent 
effort to misrepresent the attitude of the general gov- 
ernment. While it was simply endeavoring to defend 
its property and domain, it had been dinned into the 
ears of the secessionists, in the most emphatic terms, 
that the object of the United States was invasion 
and subjugation; and as true men they must arise 
and defend their hearths and homes, wives and 
children against Lincoln's minions. So our fellow- 
citizens, who had been devising every possible scheme 
to secure the secession of Missouri, thought it quite 
unnecessary for them to put forth any further effort 
to attain their object, since the incoming of soldiers 
from other States would produce such a revulsion of 
feeling against the Federal government, that the people 
without any further incentive would speedily determine 
to secede. They began to talk confidently of setting 
aside the decree of the Convention, But without 
proposing any further effort, they were quietly awaiting 
the natural drift of events. They believed that by the 
force of circumstances the State would be carried out 
of the Union and into the Southern Confederacy. 

Their confident expectation was not altogether 
baseless. Clear-headed Union men saw the danger of 
introducing troops at that time from other States into 



The Fight for the Arsenal 83 

our city. The authorities at Washington were induced 
to take this view of the case into serious consideration. 
The result was that for the time being they wisely 
changed their policy. Some regiments that had been 
ordered from Illinois to St. Louis were sent elsewhere. 
Moreover, the President, carefully humoring the preju- 
dices of those who tenaciously held the doctrine of State 
sovereignty, on April 30th, ordered Captain Lyon " to 
enroll in the military service of the United States the 
loyal citizens of St. Louis and vicinity, not exceeding, 
with those heretofore enlisted, ten thousand in number, 
for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the 
United States, and for the protection of the peaceable 
inhabitants of Missouri." So the State-rights men 
were beaten at their own game and on their own ground. 
In his order the President seemed carefully to respect 
the doctrine of State sovereignty. Only Missourians, 
and they from " St. Louis and vicinity," were to defend 
the Arsenal and city. Could anything have been more 
fitting and beautiful? But the secessionists were alto- 
gether unwilling to take their own medicine. The order 
of the President was not to their liking. It took the 
wind out of their sails; it upset their calculations. 
If ten thousand volunteers were to be gathered from 
their own city and vicinity, and no troops were to come 
from adjoining States, State sovereignty would not 
apparently be infringed, and there would be no revulsion 
of feeling against the Federal government; and, most 
of all, if the secessionists should attempt to rise in force, 
these ten thousand local volunteers would in all proba- 
bility quickly and sternly suppress them. The very 
care that the President had taken to humor their 
prejudices aroused them to intense and bitter activity 
against the Federal government. With warmth they 



84 A Border City in the Civil War 

asked if these ten thousand Missourians were not to be 
used in defending the property of the United States, 
the very property that they had vainly tried to get into 
their own hands? Was it not as unjust to use Missouri- 
ans to guard Federal property within the boundaries of 
their own State as it was to use them to guard like prop- 
erty in Maryland or Virginia? Did not the President's 
plausible policy ruthlessly override State sovereignty? 
Had not our Governor peremptorily refused to furnish 
the Federal government with Missouri soldiers to put 
down rebellion in the seceded States? Had he not 
already replied to Mr. Cameron, President Lincoln's 
Secretary of War, that the requisition for troops from 
Missouri by the United States "is illegal, unconstitu- 
tional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabohcal, and cannot 
be complied with? " ^ They did not propose to submit 
quietly to such indignities. They were once more on 
fire for action, but their activity now showed itself 
not in any attempt to take the Arsenal, but in sharp 
denunciation of the Federal authorities, and in aiding 
in every possible way those already in open revolt. 

On May 6th, an event transpired which excites laugh- 
ter now, but to a large number of our fellow-citizens 
was natural and very serious then. The disloyal police 
commissioners of St. Louis, appointed by our secession 
Governor, in a solemn and weighty document, formally 
demanded of Captain Lj'on the removal of all United 
States troops from all places and buildings occupied 
by them outside the Arsenal grounds. The commission- 
ers declared that such occupancy was " in derogation 
of the Constitution and laws of the United States." ^ 
Captain Lyon in his reply to them asked: " What pro- 

> Moore's Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 30. 
» Moore's Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 59. 



The Fight for the Arsenal 85 

visions of the Constitution and laws were thus vio- 
lated? " The commissioners replied that originally 
" Missouri had sovereign and exclusive jurisdiction 
over her whole territory," that she had delegated a 
portion of her sovereignty to the United States over 
certain tracts of land for military purposes, such as 
arsenals and parks, and asserted that outside of such 
places the United States had no right to occupy her 
soil. The whole thing was so ludicrous that thousands 
in St. Louis were merry over it. Police commissioners 
dictating as to where the United States should house 
the officers of its army and quarter its troops! But 
it was an object lesson that vividly revealed the ab- 
surdity of State sovereignty, in which so many at that 
time implicitly believed. Captain Lyon of course 
positively refused to comply with a demand so pre- 
posterous, and the commissioners with great gravity 
referred it to the Governor and legislature. Nothing 
more was ever heard of it. 

During all this time the work at the Arsenal went 
right on. The number of vokmteer soldiers daily in- 
creased. By the middle of June there were more than 
ten thousand of them, three fourths of whom were 
Germans. This latter fact should be specially noted 
since it alone can explain some events with which we 
yet shall have to deal. And under the command of 
Captain Lyon, the Arsenal ceased to be a bone of con- 
tention. It was no longer regarded with solicitude 
by the loyal of the city. It had become a bulwark of 
Unionism. Whatever came we felt measurably safe, 
since all the force of the Arsenal was now wielded 
to prevent the secession of Missouri, and to maintain the 
integrity of the Union. 



CHAPTER VI 

CAMP JACKSON 

The story of Camp Jackson roots itself in that of the 
Arsenal. A few facts will show this. During the first 
days of April our disloyal Governor became unusually 
patriotic. He thought, or appeared to think, that our 
State was about to be pounced upon by some lurking 
foe, and must be made ready to defend itself. To ensure 
its safety against an enemy that no loyal eyes could 
anywhere discern, he determined to plant a battery 
of artillery on Duncan's Island in the river immediately 
opposite the Arsenal. From this he was dissuaded, 
but he did plant one farther down the river at Powder 
Point, and another, to which we have already referred, 
on the levee, some distance above the Arsenal. All 
intelligent men of both parties understood at once that 
these batteries were hostile to the defenders of the Union, 
and if occasion offered were to be used in securing the 
Arsenal and its munitions of war for the secessionists. 
The Governor's patriotic professions really deceived 
but very few. Still, to their honor, some charitable Union 
men strove to put the best construction on his words; 
but they were often in great perplexity when they 
tried to harmonize his words with his acts. While 
plotting for the secession of the State he constantly 
harped upon his devotion to it. To his mind evidently 
its secession from the Union would be its highest good. 



Camp Jackson 87 

Still, under existing circumstances, just what he in- 
tended to do, many could not even guess. Captain 
Lyon declared that he was in correspondence with 
the Confederate authorities at Montgomery. We then 
thought that this might be true, and now know from 
war documents that Lyon as usual was right. In reply 
to a letter written by the Governor on the 17th of April, 
and sent to Montgomery by private messengers, Jeffer- 
son Davis wrote: " After learning as well as I could 
from the gentlemen accredited to me what was most 
needful for the attack on the Arsenal, I have directed 
that Captains Green and Duke should be furnished 
with two 12-pounder howitzers and two 32-pounder 
guns, with the proper ammunition for each. These, 
from the commanding hills, will be effective, both 
against the garrison and to breach the inclosing walls of 
the place. I concur with you as to the great importance 
of capturing the Arsenal and securing its supplies." 

On that same 17th of April, Governor Jackson visited 
St. Louis and had a conference with the leading seces- 
sionists who resided there. Prominent among them 
was Brigadier-General Daniel M. Frost. He was born 
and bred in the State of New York. He graduated 
from West Point in 1844, and served both in the Mexican 
War and on the western frontier. He subsequently 
married in St. Louis, resigned his commission in the 
army, and went into business in his adopted city. He 
dipped into politics, became a State Senator, and was 
finally assigned to the command of the First Brigade of 
Missouri Volunteer Militia. Snead, who was aide-de- 
camp of our secession Governor and a soldier in the 
Confederate army, says that "The Governor trusted 
Frost fully." ^ And two days before the conference 

» "The Fight for Missouri," p. 113. 



88 A Border City in the Civil War 

of April 17th, Frost presented to him a carefully pre- 
pared memorial/ praying that he would authorize him 
to form an encampment of militia near our city, and 
order Colonel Bowen, then defending the western 
counties of the State against Kansas, to report to him 
for duty. General Frost also disclosed his plan for 
placing this encampment on the bluffs just below the 
Arsenal. This however was too bold a move for the 
politic Governor, It would too clearly reveal to all 
thoughtful observers his real purpose. He preferred 
so far as possible to veil his intention. He chose clan- 
destine action. So while on that memorable 17th of 
April he refused the requisition of the Secretary of War 
for troops from Missouri in the vehement and absurd 
language already quoted, and secretly appealed by 
private messengers to Jefferson Davis for cannon with 
which to bombard and take the Arsenal, and in hot 
haste summoned the legislature to meet in extra session, 
at Jefferson City, on May 2d, in order " to place the 
State in a proper attitude of defence; " that all might 
be legally done, he fell back on the militia law of 1858, 
and ordered the commanding officers of the several 
militia districts of the State to call together, on May 6th, 
for six days, those legally required to do military duty 
for the purpose of drill in the art of war. This order 
gave General Frost liberty to form a military camp in 
any place he might choose within the limits of our city 
or county. 

But it was now too late to form his encampment 
as he had proposed to the Governor on the hills over- 
looking the Arsenal; the lynx-eyed, energetic Lyon 
had already occupied those heights with an adequate 

» Moore, D. of E., Vol. II, p. 60. Doc. 174, p. 494. Also W. R. S. 1, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 5-10. 



Camp Jackson 89 

force of infantry and artillery. So Frost called his 
militia together on the western border of the city, in 
Lindell's Grove, near the intersection of Olive Street 
and Grand Avenue. There, at the time designated by 
the Governor, he went into encampment. As he had 
urged in his memorial. Colonel Bowen was ordered to 
report to him. This to every loyal onlooker was a 
suspicious circumstance. Professedly the encampment 
was formed for the purpose of driUing the local militia, 
and at the start soldiers who were doing duty in the 
extreme western counties of the State were ordered to 
join it. While some of them hailed from St. Louis, 
many of them did not. Four companies of Minute Men 
in our city, open and avowed secessionists, with alacrity 
and enthusiasm responded to Frost's call and stood 
foremost among the troops of his encampment.^ Young 
men from different parts of the State, one here and an- 
other there, also became part of this motley military 
force. It is true that some loyal young men had belonged 
to Frost's command, and had been deceived as to his 
real character, but in the latter part of April, headed 
by Colonel Pritchard, they had abandoned it. Those 
that now gathered under his standard were homo- 
geneous in sentiment. So by common consent, in honor 
of the Governor, they dubbed their encampment Camp 
Jackson, Still, every one that joined it took the oath 
of allegiance to Missouri and the United States, But 
this did not reassure us, since the significance of that 
act depended on each man's view of State sovereignty 
and on his construction of the Federal Constitution, 

The citizens of St, Louis looked on thoughtfully. 
Some of them were happy; but that very fact tended 
to make those of opposite views apprehensive. If the 

1 W, R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 4 ; also Moore, Vol. IX, Doc. 11, p. 268. 



90 A Border City in the Civil War 

new encampment had been just what it professed to 
be, simply a place for military drill, there was not a 
loyal man in the city who would have thought of dis- 
turbing it. But there were disquieting rumors that its 
real character did not appear on the surface ; that it had 
been formed to promote the secession of the State, 
that it had been put on the western verge of the city so 
that, at a moment's notice, it could be used to suppress 
any movement that might be made by its loyal inhab- 
itants; that the secessionists, having failed to take the 
Arsenal, proposed now, when the opportune time should 
arrive, to seize the city, and that the professed defence 
of the State was simply its defence against United 
States troops. So from the beginning of the encamp- 
ment there was earnest debate among loyal men as to 
what was the wisest course of action, which continued 
until the whole city was heaving with suppressed 
excitement. 

This excitement was augmented by an ugly report 
concerning the Governor. It was said that immediately 
after the munitions of war had been removed from 
the Arsenal to Springfield, Illinois, he had sent General 
Harding, his quarter-master general, to St. Louis to 
procure for the State all the arms and ammunition that 
he could find there; that he had purchased in our city 
several hundred hunting rifles, some camp equipage, 
and many tons of powder. This looked like preparation 
for war. For what purpose did the Governor of the 
State, whose professions were so bland and pacific, 
need tons of powder? Moreover, this war material was 
shipped to Jefferson City on May 7th, the second day 
of the encampment at Lindell's Grove, under guard of 
Captain Kelly and his company, detailed from Frost's 
brigade for that special duty. The more the loyal of 



Camp Jackson 91 

the city learned or guessed at, the more certain they 
became that Camp Jackson was a menace both to St. 
Louis and the State. Still, the force at the Camp was 
not large. After Kelly and his company had been 
detailed for special duty elsewhere, there remained 
only between six and seven hundred men. But what- 
ever was the strength of the force, the Union men of the 
city, with almost absolute unanimity, regarded it as 
hostile; stili as to what ought to be done, they differed 
among themselves. 

This military force had been called together under the 
form of law; it had done nothing illegal; it had not 
interfered with the liberties or privileges of any one. 
Should it therefore be disturbed before it had com- 
mitted any overt illegal act? Such was the question 
anxiously discussed by Union men; while the secession- 
ists evidently regarded the whole situation with great 
satisfaction, thinking that they now had at last a 
reasonable hope of securing their end without violating 
the letter of the law. 

But nothing escaped the eye of Lyon. In some way, 
he knew everything that pertained to Camp Jackson, 
and proposed to do promptly and energetically his 
whole duty as an officer of the United States Army. 
He had now an ample force under arms and in process 
of drill. There has been some dispute as to the exact 
number of this force. The War Documents put it at 
about three thousand five hundred. Snead in his 
" The Fight for Missouri," says that Lyon had. May 
10th, seven thousand well-armed men. This is not at 
all sustained by the best authorities. But whatever 
may have been the exact number, he at all events was 
fully prepared for his work. 

He did not however propose to seize Camp Jackson 



92 A Border City in the Civil War 

by force before completely satisfying his counsellors 
that such a step was absolutely demanded in order 
to preserve the city and the State from being forced into 
secession. He himself had not the shadow of a doubt 
that the Camp was hostile to the United States, and 
should be broken up. His opinion was based upon the 
known character of its commander, and of many of 
the men that he had gathered around his standard. 
He had also learned much that was suspicious and dis- 
turbing from those who had visited this encampment 
of militia. But he determined to view it with his own 
eyes, so that from personal observation he could testify 
to its real character. On the 9th of May, he arrayed 
himself in the bombazine gown and close veil of Mrs. 
Alexander, the mother of Mrs. Frank P. Blair. She 
was an invalid and blind. In a light, open carriage, 
he was driven by a colored servant up and down the 
avenues of Camp Jackson. He observed their names. 
He saw the arms of the militia and noted from whence 
they had come. No one challenged him. Many in 
camp knew Mrs. Alexander, that she was an invalid 
and blind, and was accustomed to be driven out for 
her health, ^^^len he returned from his ride, Mr. Blair 
sat chatting with Colonel Simmons on the porch of the 
southern house of the Arsenal. Mr. Blair rose to help 
his mother-in-law from the carriage, but saw, when the 
bombazine gown was slightly raised, a pair of stout 
cavalry boots. He and Simmons looked significantly 
at each other but said nothing.^ 

That evening Lyon called together his Committee 
of Safety consisting of Oliver D. Filley, James 0. Broad- 
head, Samuel T. Glover, John How and Julius J. Witzig. 
When this Committee met, Mr. Blair was usualty present, 

• Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, pp. 16-17, 



Camp Jackson 93 

and he sat with them at this important, pivotal con- 
ference. Lyon laid the whole case before them. He 
set forth in detail the facts pertaining to Camp Jackson. 
He portrayed its character. He testified to what he 
had seen. He declared it to be a nest of secessionists; 
that its design was to get control of the city and if 
possible carry the State out of the Union, and that the 
only thing which remained to be done was to capture 
it at once. 

With this view three of the committee, together with 
Mr. Blair, were in hearty accord; but Mr. Glover, an 
able lawyer, strongly maintained that since the organiza- 
tion of the encampment was in strict conformity to the 
law of the State, and those gathered there had com- 
mitted no overt illegal act, it would be rash to attack 
and overcome it by an armed force. If it had in unlawful 
possession arms that belonged to the United States, a 
writ of replevin should be served by the United States 
marshal on those in command there in order to recover 
these munitions of war without any infraction of law. 
If the United States marshal required any force to aid 
him in serving the writ, he might be accompanied by all 
the soldiers under Lyon's command. Mr. How, while 
unconditionally for the Union, was a conservative 
business man and agreed with Mr. Glover. But Lyon 
and Blair and the majority of the Committee were so 
insistent for immediate radical action, that the minor- 
ity at last reluctantly yielded to them. Nevertheless 
that very night Glover, with some confidential friends, 
prepared the writ of replevin, but on the following 
forenoon, Mr. Blair gave it a coup de grace in language 
more forceful than elegant.^ When the story about the 
writ got abroad it afforded the Unionists of the city 

> Fiske, pp. 18-19. 



94 A Border City in the Civil War 

much merriment. It was one of those humorous inci- 
dents that enhvened and cheered us amid much that 
was sad and depressing. Some repeated the words of 
Lincoln in his inaugural address: " The power confided 
to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the prop- 
erty and places belonging to the government," and 
then added, "by replevin; " and this evoked derisive 
laughter. 

For two or three days rumors had reached General 
Frost that Captain Lyon was preparing to attack his 
encampment, and these rumors were so numerous and 
persistent, that Frost, on the morning of May 10th, 
addressed a letter to Captain Lyon referring to these 
ominous reports and wishing to know if there was any 
truth in them; also declaring that neither he nor his 
command intended any hostility "towards the United 
States, or its property or representatives." How 
Frost could say this is a mystery. In January he 
secured from the disloyal Major Bell the pledge that he 
would not defend the Arsenal against State troops and 
so reported to Governor Jackson; in April he was in 
conference with the Governor and chief secessionists of 
St. Louis; in a formal memorial he had already prayed 
the Governor to authorize him to form a military 
encampment near the city, and advocated placing it on 
the heights above the Arsenal; immediately thereafter 
the Governor in an autograph letter, sent by two of 
the secessionists with whom he and Frost had been 
plotting to take the very property of the United States 
that Frost now declared he had no intention of touching, 
solicited personally from Jefferson Davis cannon to be 
planted on those heights, where Frost contended that 
his encampment should be formed. This very loyal 
man a little later went straight into the rebel army. 



Camp Jackson 95 

He evidently went to his own place. On June 12th, 
1861, he openly proclaimed himself a rebel.^ In Decem- 
ber of that year he was doing for the Southern Confed- 
eracy the work of a spy at St. Louis.^ The sandy- 
haired, blue-eyed Captain at the Arsenal knew Frost's 
real character; and did not deign to answer his letter 
that was so full of professed loyalty to the United States. 

All of Lyon's forces were at noon gathered at the 
Arsenal and ready to do his bidding. About two o'clock 
he divided his brigade into three detachments and 
ordered them to proceed by different routes to Camp 
Jackson. Two of them went on difTerent streets up 
through the central part of the city, one along its 
western boundary. They arrived simultaneously on 
different sides of the camp and took possession of 
every approach to it. The artillery took positions 
on the higher points of ground around the encampment. 
The whole movement was executed with skill and 
precision. Lyon now sent a communication to Frost, 
setting forth what he considered to be the real character 
of his camp. He demanded the immediate and un- 
conditional surrender of his entire command. He gave 
him thirty minutes to decide what he would do. Frost 
now had a brief consultation with his staff. They saw 
that they were surrounded by a force greatly superior 
to their own. To fight would be worse than folly. 
They chose the part of wisdom and surrendered. They 
turned over to the United States forces all their arms, 
ammunition, accoutrements and camp equipage. 

The excitement produced in the city by the marching 



'Yet Lucian Carr, "In Missouri a Bone of Contention," Series 
of American Commonwealths, pp. 304-305, contends that Frost 
was loyal. 

» W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 706. 



96 A Border City in the Civil War 

of Lyon's troops through it, and by his investment 
and capture of the secession camp, was wide-spread and 
intense. To what deeds of violence it might lead 
no one could conjecture, but all feared some catas- 
trophe. When the troops were moving towards the 
encampment, almost involuntarily I joined the throngs 
on the street that were hm'rying thitherward. I met 
a large sandy-haired man, fully six feet in height, hat 
in hand, head partially bald, with shaggy overhanging 
eyebrows. He was a stranger to me. He was not 
apparently in a rage, but his massive frame shook 
with emotion. He knew me, and with nervous, jerky 
gesticulation and in a loud tone of voice he cried, 
" This is the result of just such preaching as yours! " 
I replied, " What do you think Lyon is going to do? " 
With still greater vehemence he cried out, " He's gone 
out to kill all the boys, — to kill the boys," and strode 
on faster than I cared to go. He was a slightly exag- 
gerated example of the agitation that swayed and 
impelled the thousands that were gathering in the 
neighborhood of that fated camp. It was invested 
at half past three in the afternoon. Then men came 
running from all directions with rifles, shot guns and 
pistols. When they heard of the movement of Lyon 
and Blair they had, by common impulse, started 
out, with such weapons as they could command 
on the spur of the moment, to re-enforce the brigade 
of Frost. It was a pity that they arrived too late. 
If they had been thirty minutes earlier the number 
of prisoners taken by Lyon would have been largely 
increased, and possibly the unfortunate and needless 
effusion of blood, which marked the close of the scene 
at Camp Jackson, would have been avoided. 
Lyon offered to release the prisoners if they would 



Camp Jackson 97 

swear to support the Constitution of the United States, 
and not to take up arms against the Federal government. 
This they then refused to do on the ground that they 
had ah'eady taken the oath of allegiance to the United 
States, and to repeat it would be a confession of dis- 
loyalty. So the}^ were marched out of the camp, forming 
a long column between two lines of Union soldiers. While 
this column of prisoners was being completed those 
farthest in advance were brought to a halt. That brief 
delay resulted in bloody disaster. Many of the prisoners 
belonged to families of high social standing in the city. 
The soldiers that were in line on either side of them 
were mostly Germans, always scornfully called Dutch 
by the secessionists. Throngs of angry men and 
women pressed up close to them, gesticulating and 
heaping upon them opprobrious, stinging epithets. 
It was difficult for them to endure this without retalia- 
tion. Among those who upbraided them were the men 
who had hurried thither with arms to re-enforce the 
camp. With their rifles, shotguns and pistols in hand 
they bitterly taunted, and struck with their fists, the 
captors of their relatives and friends. Human nature 
at last gave way. A few of the soldiers at the head of 
the column turned and fired into the mocking, vitupera- 
tive crowd and for their rash act were promptly put 
under arrest. By that volley happily no one was injured. 
But the firing enhanced the fury of the disloyal in the 
gathered and gathering multitude. Some, pressing 
upon the soldiers, spat upon them. Some threw stones 
into their ranks ; there were two or three shots from the 
turbulent throng, when, at the lower end of the columns 
of soldiers, one or two volleys were poured into the 
excited throng. It was positively denied that any 
officer commanded the soldiers under him to fire. 



98 A Border City in the Civil War 

These undisciplined volunteers were unable to stand 
motionless and in silence when attacked by stones and 
guns. The result was pitiable. The number of killed 
and wounded was about twenty-five. Not alone those 
guilty of jeering and attacking the soldiers were struck 
down, but chiefly the innocent, who had been attracted 
to the spot by the general and unusual excitement, and 
some of them were women and children. This catas- 
trophe stirred the city to its depths. While the loyal 
rejoiced over the capture of the camp, they deplored 
the unnecessary bloodshed that had attended it; still, 
taking into account the irritating provocation, they 
could not lay the blame wholly on the raw German 
troops; nevertheless, the secessionists, humiliated and 
exasperated, swore that they would avenge the capture 
of their camp. 

At about half past five, soldiers and prisoners began 
their long march to the Arsenal. The streets through 
which they passed were lined with people agitated 
with deep but diverse emotions. Some viewed with 
smiles, if not with open-mouthed exultation, the column 
of disarmed, tramping prisoners, shut in between files 
of newly armed Germans; the same scene stirred others 
to bitter execration. From the windows of some houses 
the soldiers were saluted by the waving of handker- 
chiefs; from the windows of others women expressed 
their bitter scorn by spitting at them. These troops 
with their crestfallen prisoners marched along a street 
which crossed the one on which I lived. A lady from 
the South was spending a few days with a family that 
lived next door to me. She was a very pleasant person, 
and altogether sane on every subject except that of 
secession. Any allusion to that seemed at once to un- 
balance her. She stood with quite a large group of 



Camp Jackson 99 

spectators at the intersection of the streets, viewing 
the troops as they began to file past with the prisoners. 
She trembled with excitement. She forgot her ladyhood. 
She clenched and shook her fist at the soldiers, and 
cried, " They've got my lover." A moment after she 
ran up to, and spat upon, a soldier; in a twinkling he 
broke ranks, leveled his bayonet toward her, and chased 
her down the street before my door. A sergeant fol- 
lowed him, seized him by the collar and led him back 
to his place in the marching column. 

When night was slowly shutting down on the city, 
soldiers and prisoners arrived at the Arsenal; the 
former to stand guard over their new charge, the latter 
to think after the excitement of the day was over on 
this sudden and unexpected change in their affairs. 

For supper they were offered ordinary soldier's fare; 
but having been luxuriously fed at Camp Jackson from 
the tables of their secession friends, they scorned army 
rations. They not only refused to eat but, to show their 
contempt for their captors and their resentment for 
being treated as prisoners of war, they kicked over the 
buckets of coffee provided for them, and tossed the 
hardtack and bacon over the enclosing wall of the Ar- 
senal. They were not very hungry, but some of them 
afterwards reported that they were treated with indig- 
nity and that the Yankees tried to starve them. 

At the taking of Camp Jackson there was a spectator, 
then comparatively unknown, who was destined to fill 
a large place in his country's history. He was a graduate 
of West Point and had served with fidelity as a subordi- 
nate officer in the regular army. Besides such service 
he had been by turns a banker in San Francisco and 
New York, an attorney in Leavenworth, Kansas, and 
superintendent of a military academy in Louisiana. 



100 A Border City in the Civil War 

Just then he was president of a street horse-car railway 
in St. Louis. Such, up to that time, had been the 
checkered career of William Tecumseh Sherman. 

Immediately after the taking of Camp Jackson, a 
rebel flag at Fifth and Pine Streets came down never 
to be run up again. This was the first visible effect of 
Lyon's victory. The lowering of that symbol of dis- 
union was witnessed by a modest man, before whom 
was opening a marvellously brilliant career of which as 
yet he had not even dreamed. He was then thirty-nine 
years old. He too was a graduate of West Point, and 
while an officer of lower rank had distinguished himself 
by efficient and brilliant service. But for a time, 
turning aside from a military life, he had been a farmer, 
a speculator in real estate, and a leather-dealer. But 
now, when needed in defence of the Union, he had 
offered his services to his country through the Governor 
of Illinois, and had come over to St. Louis on a tour of 
observation. He heard the shouts that the taking 
of Camp Jackson and the coming down of the Stars 
and Bars from the roof of the secession rendezvous drew 
from loyal throats. Soon after he started in a horse-car 
for the Arsenal that he might personally congratulate 
Captain Lyon on the wise and timely work that he had 
so resolutely and skilfully done. In the car a young 
Southerner, full of anguish and wrath over the lowering 
of the secession flag, said to him: "Things have come 

to a d d pretty pass when a free people can't choose 

their own flag. Where I came from, if a man dares to 
say a word in favor of the Union, we hang him to a limb 
of the first tree we come to." The modest man, into 
whose ears he poured this vengeful screed, quietly 
replied: " After all, we are not so intolerant in St. Louis 
as we might be; I have not seen a single rebel hung 



Camp Jackson 101 

yet, nor heard of one; there are plenty of them who 
ought to be, however." ^ To this stinging rebuke 
there was no response. The young and fiery secessionist 
was dumb before a man of power; he felt, but could not 
understand, the humbling force of his simple words. 
The name of that unswerving Unionist and patriot, 
Ulysses Simpson Grant, is now in our own nation, and 
in all nations that love freedom, a household word. 

But the excitement that was created in the city by 
the capture of Frost and his brigade is indescribable. 
Throngs gathered on all the principal thoroughfares. 
On Fourth Street, then the centre of the retail trade 
of the city, crowds moved to and fro eager for news. 
They bore banners of various and diverse devices. One 
band of men as they pushed excitedly along cheered, 
another going in the opposite direction answered the 
cheer by a groan. Distinguished and influential citizens 
addressed an excited multitude in front of the Planters' 
Hotel, endeavoring to allay their seething passions. 
At different places in the city men were speaking to 
impromptu audiences, in which some were cheering 
while others were yelling defiance, to bring them if 
possible to calmness and reason. In different directions 
a shot could now and then be heard. As soon as it was 
dark, from fear of riot, the saloons and restaurants were 
closed and their doors were bolted and barred. The 
windows of many private houses were also shut and 
securely fastened. The theatres and all places of public 
amusement were empty. The police were on the alert, 
but were taxed to the utmost to nip in the bud any 
show of disorder. In spite of their vigilance and effi- 
ciency a crowd made a charge on Dimick's gun-store 
on Main Street, broke open the door and secured fifteen 

* Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, p. 20. 



102 A Border City in the Civil War 

or twenty guns,, when the gathering mob was dispersed 
by about twenty poHcemen armed with muskets. But 
as the night wore on the excitement abated; men by 
degrees sought their homes and their beds; some in 
quietude to rejoice over the brightening prospects of 
Unionism, others to mourn over the fading hopes of 
secession. 

When morning dawned, the prisoners at the Arsenal 
viewed more favorably the conditions on which the day 
before parole had been offered them. All but one now 
took the prescribed oath of allegiance to the United 
States, and, thereupon being paroled, left for their 
homes, where they were joyfully greeted and sat 
down to well-loaded tables. The plucky one, however, 
persisting for a time in his refusal to subscribe to the 
oath, remained in durance vile. But many of those 
who were paroled openly declared that they did not 
intend to abide by their oaths, excusing their pur- 
posed perjuiy on the specious plea that an oath taken 
under compulsion is not binding. 

This disregard of the oath of allegiance stirred up 
all good men in our city to consider its sanctity and 
to protest against its wanton violation. Still, most of 
those captured at Camp Jackson, in spite of the fact 
that they were paroled because they deliberately swore 
that they would not take up arms against the United 
States, enlisted sooner or later in the army of the 
Southern Confederacy. 

The sudden and unexpected taking of Camp Jackson 
carried consternation into the secession legislature, then 
in extra session at Jefferson City. It was announced to 
them between five and six o'clock in the afternoon. 
The members of the Assembly were discussing a militia 
bill, which, after receiving the news, they passed within 



Camp Jackson 103 

fifteen minutes. In haste they sent it to the Senate, 
where it was passed instanter without debate. 

This bill, which General Harney later characterized 
as a secession measure, created a military fund for 
arming and equipping the militia of the State. All 
moneys in the treasury collected for other and specified 
objects were diverted to this purpose. To augment 
this militar}^ fund taxes on the assessed value of property 
were enormously increased. Even the school tax was 
subsidized for three years. Moreover, the Governor 
was authorized to call on the banks for a loan of five 
hundred thousand dollars. By this bill, the militia 
were required to take an oath that asserted fealty to 
Missouri as first and supreme : ^ so dominant was State 
sovereignty in the minds of these secession legislators. 

At half past seven the legislature, which had become 
calmer and in some measure reassured, met once more 
to discuss the anomalous condition of affairs. But as 
there seemed to be no immediate danger, these disloyal 
lawmakers adjourned at half-past nine, and, with most 
of the peaceably disposed inhabitants of Jefferson City, 
retired for the night. But their rest was soon broken. 
A little after midnight the bells began to ring furiously; 
a tremendous thunder-storm was just bursting upon the 
city; amid vivid lightning flashes, deafening thunder- 
claps, and torrents of pelting rain, men on foot and on 
horseback flew through the city, summoning with 
stentorian cries the legislature to assemble with all 
possible despatch. It met in secret session at half past 
three in the morning. Without deliberation it gave the 
Governor absolute control over St. Louis and con- 
ferred upon him extraordinary powers for suppres- 
sing insurrectionary movements throughout the State. 

» Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. IX, Doc. 11, p. 259. 



104 A Border City in the Civil War 

What terrible thing had produced this panic? A 
rumor, flying on the wings of darkness, had reached the 
city that Colonel Blair, with two thousand troops, 
was on his way to the State capital. He was coming 
on the Pacific Railroad. Steam-cars moved rapidly and 
this hostile invasion must be met at once, if met at all. 
Without any delay the Governor and his staff began 
to remove war material from the city. Under the cover 
of darkness they sent twelve thousand kegs of powder 
into the country. An armed and tumultuous band of 
men moved eastward and burned the railroad bridge 
over the Osage. This relieved the fears of those at the 
capital, since Blair with his German minions would for 
a time, at all events, be hindered by that swollen and 
bridgeless river. But it was all a baseless fright. Colonel 
Blair and his soldiers were serenely sleeping at St. Louis, 
having been lulled to their slumbers by the satisfaction 
that in taking Camp Jackson they had done a good 
day's work for the Union. 

The next day, the 11th of May, all the material 
captured at Camp Jackson was removed to the Arsenal. 
Then all the city knew, what Lyon had known before, 
the hostile nature of that captured camp. Its main 
avenue was named Jefferson Davis; one of its principal 
cross-streets Beauregard. Its arms, both muskets and 
cannon, had been stolen from the Arsenal at Baton 
Rouge. They had been consigned as marble Ho " Ta- 
moroa. Care of Greely and Gale." This. was of course 
a mere blind, since the firm of Greely and Gale was 
distinguished in the city for its outspoken loyalty. 
But the officers of the steamer on which these munitions 
of war were brought up the river to St. Louis were 

*D. J. Hancock, President of the Illinois River Packet Co., says 
the cannon were sent in crockery crates. 



Camp Jackson 105 

in sympathy with General Frost and his immediate 
counsellors, and, without raising any question, de- 
livered this war material, not to those to whom it was 
consigned, but to those for whom it was intended. 
Among the cannon were the pieces that Jefferson Davis 
had ordered to St. Louis, that were to be placed, accord- 
ing to the plan of General Frost and the Governor, on 
the bluffs, overlooking the Arsenal, in order to capture 
it; but since the opportunity to plant them there 
had passed, they were taken instead to Camp Jackson. 
Everybody who did not know before, knew now that 
Camp Jackson was an ally of the Southern Confederacy.^ 
Some of the j^oung men within that camp, as has been 
claimed, may have been hoodwinked Unionists, but 
considering all the evidences of the disloyal character 
of the encampment, daily thrust before their eyes, if 
they were deceived, they must have been unusually 
stupid. 

»See Lyon's Keport, W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 4-5; also pp. 386-387. 



CHAPTER VII 

RIOT, PANIC, SEARCH AND CONFISCATION 

While on the 11th of May, the day succeeding the 
capture of Camp Jackson, the frenzy evoked by that 
starthng event had measurably passed away, it had been 
succeeded, in the minds of many of the disloyal, by a 
grim determination to take summary vengeance on the 
victorious Unionists. On that very day, at the evening 
twilight, the opportunity presented itself for carrying 
out their vindictive purpose. It was rumored that a 
regiment of Home Guards, made up largely of Germans, 
was about to return from the Arsenal, where it had 
just been armed. In some way a band of fiery seces- 
sionists ascertained the route that the regiment would 
take on its return march, and for the purpose of harass- 
ing and attacking it, hid themselves behind the pillars 
of a Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Fifth and 
Walnut Streets. In dwelling-houses opposite the church 
were some of their allies. They had planned to attack 
the regiment simultaneously on both flanks. And when 
in the gathering darkness, these newly armed men were 
peacefully passing westward along Walnut Street, 
their concealed foes at first jeered and hissed them. This 
was followed by unprovoked and dastardly attack. 
Missiles of various kinds, from both sides of the street, 
were hurled into the ranks of these new, undisciplined 
volunteers. A revolver was fired at them from behind 



Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation 107 

the pillars of the church and a soldier fell dead. Two 
shots then rang out from the windows of the houses 
opposite the church. The soldiers in the van, now 
thoroughly demoralized, wheeled about and wildly 
fired down the street. The musket-balls flew in every 
direction. Some hit the church, some the houses 
opposite the church, while some were poured into their 
own ranks. When the firing ceased six men lay dead 
on the pavement: four of their own regiment, three of 
whom they themselves had killed, and two unarmed 
citizens; while several innocent passers-by were wounded.^ 
This sad event stirrefl up much vengeful passion. 
There was crimination and recrimination. Feelins 
on both sides ran high. It was intense, bitter, hot. 
Portentous rumors filled the air. Apprehension of 
something awful pervaded many minds. Disaster 
seemed impending. On a city thus agitated and torn 
midnight darkness at last graciously fell. A merciful 
Providence had at least held the contending multitudes 
back from general riot. 

Morning dawned. It was Sunday, the 12th of May. 
The heavens were partially overcast, and there was a 
chill in the air. Very few besides the newsboys were 
seen in the streets. The general silence seemed in some 
way to foretoken the near approach of some overwhelm- 
ing calamity. Abject fear had taken possession of many 
minds. The doors of hundreds of dwelling-houses were 
shut and bolted, and the windows darkened by blinds 
and shades were securely fastened. No one passing 
along the nearly deserted thoroughfares could escape 
a certain weird influence that enwrapped him and all 
things about him. Objects the most familiar wore an 
unusual and an uncanny aspect. What power was this 

1 W. R. s. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 9. 



108 A Border City in the Civil War 

which, from enfolding shadows, reached out its formless 
yet mighty hand and grasped thousands in our city 
and held them quivering with terror in its relentless 
grip? This, for want of a better name, men have called 
a panic. How it comes no one has ever been able to 
tell; how it departs never to return is equally mysteri- 
ous. But on that Sunday morning, so long ago, it had 
thrown its horrid spell over St. Louis. And while men 
according to their varied constitutions were differently 
affected, none wholly escaped its dread touch. Still, 
what it was, no one was astute enough to explain, but 
that it was an awful reality thousands in the evening 
of that day of inexplicable alarm could testify. 

The day before. General Harney had returned from 
Washington and resumed his old command. Before 
the gray dawn of the day of panic, some prominent 
citizens, incited by fear of which they could give no 
rational explanation, implored the General to protect 
them against the murderous Dutch (Germans), who 
were about to kill them and loot and burn their houses. 
When Harney asked them for the evidence of their 
declarations they had nothing more substantial to offer 
than Dame Rumor. Still, wishing to c^uiet their fears, 
he decided to yield to their entreaties so far as he could 
do so with dignity. So he sent from the Arsenal de- 
tachments of soldiers to those parts of the city, repre- 
sented to be most exposed to the incursions of what 
he himself believed to be purely imaginary foes. He 
also issued a proclamation and posted it up in all of 
the most frequented streets and public places, declaring 
to the people that he nowhere saw any evidence of special 
danger, and appealed to them to lay aside their ground- 
less fear. These considerate acts of the General had ex- 
actly the opposite effect from what he intended ; instead 



Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation 109 

of quieting the people they excited them still more; 
instead of allaying, they intensified, their alarm. And 
such an outcome was altogether natural. Bodies of 
armed men marching hither and thither through the 
city and stationed at different points as guards, and a 
proclamation hurriedly issued on Sunday morning, 
seemed to them to be tangible proof of the existence 
of greater danger than they had supposed. And, as 
the hours of the morning wore away, the apprehension 
of some awful calamity about to fall upon the inhabit- 
ants of the city grew until a great multitude were filled 
with terror. 

At the usual hour for morning service, I went to 
church. On my way thither, I saw but few going to 
the different houses of worship. My own congregation 
was about one third of its usual size. Most of the church 
officers were absent. At the close of the service, groups 
of the small audience exchanged with each other a 
few words, declaring that in their judgment there was 
no danger, that the general fright was baseless, and 
then evidently with some degree of anxiety quickly 
departed for their homes. 

It was now between twelve and one. The clouds of 
the morning were gone. The sun shone brightly. But 
the few people venturing out into the streets seemed 
even more cheerless and terror-stricken than earlier in 
the day. Here and there a carriage, filled with anxious 
faces, was driven hurriedly along. Just after my dinner, 
about two o'clock, my landlord and next-door neighbor, 
a moderate secessionist, cautious, conservative, phleg- 
matic, called to see me. He asked, apparently with 
great coolness : "Do you think that we are in any special 
danger? " I answered, "No, I do not think we are. 
The Germans, who have inspired so many with alarm, 



110 A Border City in the Civil War 

have no ill will towards us. The fear, now agitating 
so many in the city, has not a particle of foundation." 
"Well," he replied, "that is just what I think, but" — 
and here he betrayed his suspicion that there might be 
some danger which did not appear on the surface — 
" do you think when General Harney declared this 
morning in his proclamation that there was no cause 
for alarm, he concealed anything from the public? " 
I assured him that I fully believed that the general 
was acting a truthful and honorable part. He said: 
" I think so too," and bade me good day; but within 
thirty minutes, an open two-horse carriage drove up 
to his door; his family brought out satchels, bags and 
pillow-cases, hastily stuffed with necessary articles 
of clothing, threw them pell-mell into the vehicle, 
and unceremoniously clambering in after them, drove 
away at breakneck speed as though they were pursued 
by some invisible demon. 

This led me to go out and walk hither and thither 
through the central part of the city. The scene presented 
to my view was surpassingly strange. Carriages and 
wagons filled with trunks, valises, hastily made bundles, 
and frightened men, women and children were flying 
along the streets towards every point of the compass. 
Some scared souls, unable to obtain a vehicle of any 
kind, were walking or running with breathless haste, 
carrying all sorts of bundles in their hands, under their 
arms or on their shoulders. All these were fleeing from 
imaginary danger. But the fancied conflagration and 
slaughter which they believed themselves to be escaping 
were to them awful realities, enacted, with all their 
attendant horrors, over and over again within their 
minds. 

Some of the panic-stricken fled into the country 



Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation 111 

and found shelter in outside villages and farmhouses. 
A gentleman, who lived several miles northwest of the 
city, told me that these frightened fugitives filled all 
his spare beds, and lay all over the floors of his upper 
and lower hall and parlor. He was a Union man and 
poked fun at his unexpected secession guests on their 
senseless terror, but finding them just then incapable 
of mirth, and seeing that they were still keenly suffering 
from imaginary horrors, he mercifully desisted. 

The scene at this farmhouse was representative of 
many similar scenes on that night in all the country 
about St. Louis. But many of the fugitives crossed the 
river on the ferry-boats and sought refuge in black- 
Republican Illinois. A host of them also filled the 
steamers at the levee and went north to Alton and 
Quincy, and South to Cairo and Columbus, while some 
of them refused to land till they reached Memphis. 
It is difficult for any one not an eye-witness to believe 
that such a stupid stampede could ever have taken 
place. 

But some of the terror-stricken, who did not flee, 
acted with equal folly. A secession acquaintance of 
mine, living but two squares from my door, early in 
the day transformed his house into a fortress. He 
invited under his roof a dozen or more of his southern 
friends. Among them they had sixteen guns of various 
kinds. They barricaded the door and windows of the 
house, leaving loop-holes through which they could 
shoot. And there behind these hastily constructed 
defences, during all that Sabbath day, they waited with 
shivering apprehension for the coming of the dreaded 
foe, determined, if they should be called to lay down 
their lives, to sell them dearly. 

But evening came. During the day no one had been 



112 A Border City in the Civil War 

injured. Nothing had transpired to justify the abject 
fear of so many thousands of people. Yet many of the 
terrified, who still remained in the city, were appre- 
hensive lest the expected blow might fall under the 
cover of the gathering darkness. At the hour of evening 
service I was, as usual, in my pulpit. Only about sixty 
or seventy were in the pews. Only one officer of the 
church was present. Three neighboring pastors of other 
denominations were there. My wife and my sister were 
the only women in the congregation. I preached 
without making the slightest reference to the events of 
the day, believing that to be the wisest course. When 
the last word was spoken, the little company quickly 
and quietly dispersed, I learned the next day that we 
were the only Protestant congregation in the city that 
publicly worshipped on that anxious evening, and that 
the most prominent men in my church and congregation, 
belonging as they did to the Home Guards, were absent 
because engaged in military duty. With their muskets 
they were endeavoring to protect their terrified fellow- 
citizens against imaginary foes. 

On Monday one of them gave me a detailed account 
of the movement of the Home Guards the night before. 
Early in the evening they threw a line of scouts across 
the city from east to west. Each soldier in the line 
was a square from his fellow. They then began to feel 
their way cautiously toward the southern part of the 
city, where most of the Germans lived, who were sup- 
posed to be so bloodthirsty. As they reached each 
street, running east and west, the scouts halted until 
word was passed from one to another along the whole 
extended line; then they crept on again toward that 
awful, invisible enemy. Nobody was abroad on the 
streets. The city was almost as still as a churchyard. 



Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation 113 

The very stillness added to the general terror and made 
the flesh of the timid creep. A little before midnight 
these doughty scouts as they slowly moved southward, 
carefully scanning every street, alley and house for some 
lurking foe, saw before them armed men coming towards 
them from the south. They hailed each other. Word 
was passed along the whole of their respective lines; 
at last they were all gathered together. They were not 
enemies but friends, all equally intent on keeping the 
peace. Each man eagerly told what had been trans- 
piring during the day in the part of the city to which he 
belonged. These scouts that had gone southward said 
that hosts of American-born citizens, living in the cen- 
tral part of the city, heard and fully believed that the 
Germans were coming up in force to loot and burn their 
houses and put them to the sword. On the other hand, 
the armed Germans said that the southern part of the 
city, where they lived, had all day been filled with terror, 
because a baseless rumor was firmly believed that the 
American-born citizens to the north of them were coming 
down to loot and burn their dwellings and kill them. 
Having thus told of the mutual fears of those whom 
they represented, and found their fancied foes to be 
their ardent friends, gloom gave way to merriment and 
joy. The whole day with all its fantastic scenes inspired 
by abject fear seemed now a huge joke. All anxiety gone, 
these mutual guardians of the peace shook hands with 
each other and shook their sides with laughter. Proud 
of the city in which they lived and grateful for its con- 
tinued safety, they gave three cheers for her. The 
sound of those ringing cheers at midnight carried assur- 
ance and quietude to many that heard. 

The next morning the lethargy of the city was as pro- 
found as the excitement of the preceding day had been 



114 A Border City in the Civil War 

intense. Before nine o'clock very few were astir. Here 
and there a pedestrian passed along on some necessary- 
errand. On some streets market- wagons lumbered by. 
The morning markets, usually so full of life, were half 
deserted. However, as the day wore on, signs of return- 
ing activity multiplied; but when men met each other, 
they made scant allusion to the scenes of yesterday. 
There was evidently a good deal of thinking, but there 
certainly was very little talking. Many appeared to be 
ashamed of themselves. Those who had been terrorized 
manifestly desired to cover up and forget their folly; 
those who had not been much moved by the general 
alarm, in kindness restrained themselves from saying, 
" I told you so." This was cheering. It showed that 
neighborly kindness and true manhood had not perished 
in the panic; that what was noblest and best in those 
who disagreed so radically on great cjuestions of state 
policy, stretched itself over all their differences like a 
rainbow on the clouds of a passing storm. 

But hundreds of our fellow-citizens were still in the 
places to which they had so hurriedly fled. On Monday 
most of them heard that no ruthless enemy had wrapped 
their dwellings in flames and slaughtered the defenceless; 
that the current of affairs in their beloved city was 
flowing on unimpeded and unruffled. By Tuesday a 
large number of them had quietly returned to their 
homes, and by the end of the week even those that 
sought refuge in distant cities shamefacedly came back. 
Unannoyed they resumed their duties. Few made any 
curious inquiries, or even alluded to their strange and 
groundless terror and ludicrous flight. No event so 
startling and unique was apparently so soon and utterly 
forgotten. 

However, to make this portrayal of the panic adequate 



Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation 115 

and just, one more thing must be specially noted. While 
but few could wholly escape its subtle and awful influ- 
ence, I knew of no Unionist, nor heard of one, that 
through fear fled from the city. They did not for a 
moment believe that the loyal Germans intended vio- 
lence to anybody. They therefore looked upon the 
scene of terror enacted before them with both amuse- 
ment and amazement; but most of them learned, 
probably for the first time, how terribly real to fright- 
ened men and women imaginary evils can be, and so for 
their returning secession neighbors they had only kindly 
greetings. 

Other stirring events soon claimed our attention and 
absorbed our thoughts. As soon as the panic was over, 
General Harney, in a vigorous proclamation, sustained 
the act of Lyon in taking Camp Jackson, enumerating 
the evidences that the camp was hostile to the general 
government; denounced the military bill recently 
passed by the legislature as an indirect secession ordi- 
nance, a nullity and not at all to be obeyed by the 
people of the State; declared that all the power of the 
United States would be used to maintain its supreme 
authority, and that " no subterfuges, whether in the 
form of legislative acts or otherwise, can be permitted 
to harass or oppress the good and law-abiding people 
of Missouri." 

This manifesto of the commanding general was a 
genuine surprise both to the secessionists and Unionists, 
Up to this time the former had regarded him as a 
moderate Unionist, whose hesitancy and vacillation 
enabled them to plot almost unmolested against the 
general government; while the latter had at times 
even doubted his loyalty to the Union. But now both 
parties saw the real sentiment of his heart. On account 



116 A Border City in the Civil War 

of it the secessionists were quite dispirited. The Mis- 
souri Republican, a semi-secession, Democrat paper, the 
next morning gave voice to their disappointment by 
saying, " We are bound hand and foot; chained down by 
a merciless tyranny; are subjected and shackled,"^ 

But on all sides men were now asking, " Will the 
general by act make good the words of his proclama- 
tion? " He did not leave them long in doubt. His 
conclusive reasoning evidently was that if, for the pro- 
tection of loyal citizens, it was necessary to capture 
Camp Jackson, it was equally necessary to break up all 
other places where the disloyal were gathering means 
which, at the opportune moment, they might use to 
secure the secession of the State. So, on the 17th of 
May, just five days after the panic, in order " to preserve 
the peace of St. Louis and promote the tranquillity of 
Missouri," warrants were issued by the Federal Court 
for the search of all places within our city suspected 
of harboring articles contraband of war. With these 
warrants in hand. United States Marshal Rawlings, 
accompanied by a squad of Federal soldiers, under the 
command of Captain Sweeney, proceeded to the State 
Tobacco Warehouse on Washington Avenue, and to 
the Central Metropohtan Police Station on Chestnut 
Street.^ Both of these places were dominated and 
controlled by secessionists. In the latter gathered 
those police commissioners, who were appointed by 
the Governor, and reflected his notions and policies. 
At the Warehouse were found several hundred rifles, 
muskets, cavalry pistols, holsters, and small boxes of 
ammunition; and at the Police Station two pieces of 
cannon and many rifles. The marshal took possession 

»Snead, The Fight for Missouri, p. 179. 

* Moore's Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 92. 



Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation 117 

of this war material, and the accompanying soldiers 
captured all the aiders and abettors of treason found 
in these nests of disloyalty. We all now saw that 
General Harney was acting up to his brave and true 
words, and that the judges and officers of the United 
States courts were intent on recovering, so far as 
possible, the stolen property of the general government; 
that both the civil and military powers were joining 
hands in enforcing the law and in suppressing secession 
and revolt. 

But very soon after this exhibition of energy and 
loyalty on the part of Harney, anxious to preserve the 
peace of his beloved Missouri, on the 21st of May, just 
four days after the search and seizure narrated above, 
he entered into a formal agreement with Price,^ then 
the major-general of the Missouri militia, in which he 
committed the whole military care of the State to the 
latter, binding himself not to use United States troops 
in Missouri for the suppression of disorder or the defence 
of any of its inhabitants, unless asked to do so by the 
State authorities. In short he covenanted to abandon 
utterly all initiative in military operations within our 
commonwealth, and to subject himself to the lead of the 
commander of the State militia. This agreement 
pledged the Federal government to uphold in the most 
practical fashion the doctrine of State sovereignty; 
it sustained the very thing which the United States 
was marshalling its armies to oppose and if possible to 
crush out forever. Over this ill-starred covenant with 
our enemies, every Unionist of St. Ijouis and Missouri 
was sick at heart. Such an agreement carried out 
would have been the death-blow to all loyalty through- 

' Moore's Rebelliou Record, Vol. I, p. 363. Also W. R. S. 1, Vol. 
Ill, pp. 374^81, 383. 



118 A Border City in the Civil War 

out the State. The Unionists of St. Louis wondered 
how a general, who had been so outspoken against 
disunionism a few days before, could be so hoodwinked 
as to enter into a solemn compact by which he permitted 
the enemy of his country to bind him hand and foot. 
As he ought to have expected, the government which 
he had so utterly misrepresented in this strange compact 
with Price promptly removed him from his command, 
and put in his place Lyon, who a few days l)efore had 
been made brigadier-general. 

Lyon took hold of his new duties with a will. In the 
latter part of May, by his order, the steamer " J. C. Swan " 
was seized at Harlow's Landing, about thirty miles 
below the city, and brought up to the St. Louis Arsenal.^ 
This was the boat that surreptitiously brought from 
Baton Rouge the arms that were captured at Camp 
Jackson. By due process of law she was confiscated 
and put into the service of the Union. But nothing 
escaped the eagle eye of the Yankee general at the 
Arsenal. He seemed intuitively to apprehend the de- 
signs and movements of the Confederates. So while with 
one hand he seized this recreant steamer, with the other 
he intercepted at Ironton, on the Iron Mountain Rail- 
road, several tons of lead en route for the South. A 
party of secessionists resisted the military force sent to 
make this capture, some shots were fired, but happily 
no blood was shed. That lead was diverted from the 
Southern Confederacy. Lyon saw to it that it was 
shot not at Union men, but by them at the enemies 
of the Union. 

The exportation of lead from Missouri was one of the 
cherished plans of the Southern malcontents. As early 
as May 1st, 1861, Samuel Tate, writing from Charleston, 

' Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, D. of E., p. 76. 



Riot, Panic, Search and Confiscation 119 

South Carolina, to the Hon. A. M. Clayton of Montgom- 
ery, Alabama, pressed upon his attention the impor- 
tance of keeping Missouri under the control of the 
Confederacy. Without her, he urged, the last hope 
would be cut off "for a full supply of provisions and 
lead." ^ He said, " Governor Jackson is with us. His 
people are with us, except at St. Louis, where they 
are divided. The first thing we know, we shall be out 
of powder, lead and percussion caps." So, early in 
the war, one clear-headed man, south of Mason and 
Dixon's line, understood our Governor, and saw what an 
important storehouse for the rebel armies Missouri 
would be, and insisted that no effort should be spared 
to unite her destiny with that of the Confederacy. But 
Lyon had otherwise determined; and during that ever 
memorable month of May, mainly through his initiative 
and under his direction, the most startling events 
followed each other in rapid succession. Camp Jackson 
was taken; the rebel flags were lowered; nests of seces- 
sionists were broken up and their arms, gathered with 
hostile intent, were captured; a treacherous steamboat 
was seized and confiscated; a train of cars laden with 
lead for the Southern Confederacy was intercepted. 
At that early stage of the war, all these things were 
surpassingly strange to us, and by them for weeks the 
whole city was kept bubbling with excitement. 

»W. R. S. 4, Vol. I, p. 276. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 

Before the war of the rebelhon, the pulpit had ably 
discussed in all of its aspects the question of slavery. 
And as the mighty conflict for the preservation of the 
Union was approaching, all the vast issues wrapped up 
in it were handled with rare skill by distinguished 
preachers both of the North and the South. But 
since in St. Louis Christian ministers holding opposite 
views on the great national questions of slavery and 
secession stood face to face, for a time they refrained 
from speaking upon them publicly. They were not 
silent from cowardice; so far from that, it required 
no small degree of self-control to hold their peace. They 
shut their lips lest by speaking they should unneces- 
sarily disturb the peace of the community. 

Moreover, many a pastor, out of tender regard for the 
members of his church and congregation, for some 
months at the beginning of the Civil War refused to 
discuss in his pulpit the question of the hour. Unless, 
in his judgment, the public good imperatively demanded 
it, he felt unwilling to wound the feelings of Christian 
friends and split his church into hostile parties by 
openly proclaiming his patriotic convictions. Nor 
should we fail to note that most of the preachers of the 
city rightly felt that their work primarily was distinctively 
spiritual, rather than political; that however sacred 



The Pulpit and the Press 121 

might be their duty to their country, there were duties 
still higher and still more sacred. They were also per- 
suaded that they sliould, so far as in them lay, calm 
the public mind rather than agitate it ; should strengthen 
reason and cool passion; promote love and discourage 
hatred and revenge. Accordingly, such men as Eliot 
of the Unitarians, Post of the Congregationalists, Nelson 
of the Presbyterians, Schuyler of the Episcopalians, the 
staunchest of Union men, and each of them a tower of 
strength in the city, seeking to do the largest possible 
good in a community divided and torn by antagonistic 
political doctrines, for a season refrained from giving 
public utterance to their Union sentiments. When, 
however, they did speak, they boldly discussed with 
great ability and thoroughness the duties which citizens 
owe to the State. 

During the winter of 1860-61 there was but one 
clergyman in the city, who publicly spoke upon the 
great national issue, and he was a pronounced and 
prominent secessionist, or, which was the same thing 
under a different label, a conditional Unionist. And 
strange to say, this good Presbyterian brother regarded 
the introduction of politics into the pulpit with holy 
horror; at all events he thought that his brethren in 
the ministry should refrain from discussing in the house 
of God disturbing political problems; nevertheless, he, 
in an elaborate discourse, on the Lord's Day, set forth 
in his pulpit, " The Ultimatum of the South." But 
our miinisterial brother apparently failed to see that 
" wherein he judged another he condemned himself." 
He not only preached a political sermon, but published 
it in pamphlet form, and did what he could to scatter 
copies of it all over the State. So he was not after 
all really opposed to preaching politics, but to preaching 



122 A Border City In the Civil War 

politics that antagonized his own cherished political 
views. Not his own, but his opponent's politics de- 
graded the pulpit. 

Since, however, it is my purpose to present in these 
pages not only my observations of others, but also my 
own experiences, I trust that it will not be regarded 
as egotistical and indelicate on my part, if I carefully 
portray some scenes in which I was called to be an actor. 
From 1858 to 1866 I was pastor of the Second Baptist 
Church of St. Louis and preached at the corner of Sixth 
and Locust Streets, in a plain, steepleless, brick meeting- 
house, painted lead color. The membership of the church 
was five or six hundred, and for three years of my pasto- 
rate, the men outnumbered the women. The church 
contained an unusual number of able, aggressive young 
men. In the congregation the rich and the poor sat 
side by side. All walks and pursuits of life were there 
represented. In the pews were a goodly number of 
lawyers, some of them among the ablest advocates 
and counsellors in the State. One of them, James 0. 
Broadhead, not a Baptist, a member of the Union 
Safety Committee, was a man of conspicuous abihty. 
He was a native of Virginia, liberal-minded, conserva- 
tive, clear-headed. He was an ardent patriot without 
fanaticism. While instinctively shrinking from all 
extreme positions on the vexed political questions of 
the hour, he was unswervingly loyal to the Union. In 
those dark tempestuous days, he stood like a granite 
rock amid the swirling waves of passion. 

Moreover, in the congregation, and also in the mem- 
bership of the church, was William M. McPherson. He 
came from the poor whites of Kentucky. What he was 
he owed largely to a godly mother. Amid great dis- 
advantages he secured the rudiments of an English 



The Pulpit and the Press 123 

education. He then studied law at night, in his humble 
Kentucky home, by the light of flaming pine knots. He 
also taught a country school to put an honest penny into 
his empty purse. While yet in the beginning of his pro- 
fessional career as a lawyer, he came to St. Louis. He 
there at one time filled the office of United States attor- 
ney. Out of tender remembrance of his mother, and 
a sacred promise that he made her, he regularly attended 
church. He became a Christian. During my pastorate, 
out of choice he was an usher in the middle aisle, and 
none that received his attentions could ever forget the 
gracious kindliness of his manner. But back of his 
marked benevolence of spirit lay immense power of 
will. When he laid his hand to a work within or without 
the church, if human energy could accomplish it, it 
was quickly done. He was passionately devoted both 
to his city and his country. In the darkest days of the 
war, he was as true to the Old Flag as the needle to the 
pole. To preach to him and others of like spirit was an 
inspiration. 

In my church were seven deacons, all of them loyal 
to the Federal government. Of some of them we shall 
have occasion to speak in another connection. But one 
of them, Daniel J. Hancock, a Gibraltar of strength 
to his pastor, I refer to here, on account of an interesting 
incident in connection with the public mention of his 
name. General Hancock, who in the Civil War acquired 
a world-wide military fame, spent the winter of 1860-61 
in St. Louis. His father, who was a deacon of a Baptist 
church in Pennsylvania, paid him a visit. One Sunday 
morning they both worshipped with us. Before the 
sermon a collection was to be taken for some special 
object. I said, " Will Deacon Pratt and Deacon Han- 
cock pass the contribution boxes? " General Hancock's 



124 A Border City in the Civil War 

father, not knowing that there was a Deacon Hancock 
in my church, was on his feet in a moment, ready to do 
the duty asked. The general, pulling his father's coat- 
tail, said to him in a whisper, "There is a Deacon Han- 
cock in this church." Was not the general's readiness 
for any duty on the battle-field in large measure an 
inheritance? 

As the winter wore away, and in turn spring and 
summer came, military officers in constantly increasing 
numbers appeared in the congregation. I very distinctly 
remember General Sumner. Every Sunday night for 
two or three months, he sat to my right near the pulpit. 
Being slightly deaf, he got as near as he could to the 
speaker. He was tall and graceful in form and move- 
ment, a man who would attract attention even in a 
crowd. He was afterwards conspicuous in the great 
battles of Fair Oaks, Antietam and Fredericksburg. 

What I have now said may suggest with some dis- 
tinctness the circumstances under which I performed 
my pulpit ministrations. But I was full of unrest be- 
cause I had not spoken concerning the duties that we 
all sacredly owed to our country. I felt that sooner 
or later every man, who had any influence whatsoever, 
regardless of his surroundings, must speak out boldly 
on the great national issue. This conviction was re- 
enforced by two distasteful incidents thrust upon my 
attention. The first was this. At the Sunckiy morning 
service I usually i)rayed for the President and his 
advisers. So long as Mr. Buchanan was in office this 
appeared to be agreeable to all; but no sooner was Mr. 
Lincoln inaugurated than some began to object to this 
part of my prayer. In private conversation they gave 
free expression to their resentment. The congregation 
was divided on the question. Among themselves they 



The Pulpit and the Press 125 

warmly debated it. No one as yet had uttered his pro- 
test to me. But I had heard of the strenuous objection 
urged against my petition for our Chief Magistrate. 
Believing, however, that I was discharging a sacred 
duty, a duty positively enjoined in Scripture, I kept 
right on praying publicly for the President. There was 
as yet no sign of yielding on either side. Relations were 
already strained, if not wrenched. Something must 
be done, so, at least, thought the opposition forces. They 
got together and requested William M. McPherson, on 
their behalf, to talk the matter over with me. While he 
had no sympathy with their opposition, in order that he 
might do something in the interest of harmony in the 
church, he consented to lay their grievance before me. 
He invited me to meet him at his business office, that 
our interview might be strictly private. Since I had no 
truer friend, I gladly responded to his courteous request. 
When we met he at once said: "A considerable number 
of the church and congregation have sent to you through 
me an earnest petition that in the future you should 
forego praying publicly for the President. And they 
have asked me to induce you, if I can, to grant their 
desire." I replied: "Such prayer is no new thing in 
my pulpit ministrations. I prayed for Mr. Buchanan 
and no one objected to that; and I do not see why 
any one should now object to my praying for Mr, 
Lincoln." "Ah!" he answered, "that is just the sore 
point; they think that praying for Lincoln is partisan, 
that it is praying against the South ; and can't you for 
the sake of peace forego it? " I responded, "If Lincoln 
is as bad as they say he is, I am sure that both I and they 
ought to pray for him; he needs our prayers. Moreover, 
be so kind as to say to your brethren and mine, that 
according to the Protestant idea, prayer is indited by 



126 A Border City in the Civil War 

the Holy Spirit; and if the Holy Spirit leads me to pray 
publicly for the President, I must do it even though it 
may be disagreeable to my fellow men." 

My reply seemed to please him, and he said: "Shall I 
say that that is your message to them? " "Certainly," 
said I, and our interview thus ended very pleasantly; 
but as I went towards my home, I became more posi- 
tively convinced than ever, that all true men holding 
positions of trust in the city would soon be compelled 
to speak out with no uncertain accent on the question 
that was threatening to disrupt the Union. When the 
pews in opposition to good government go so far as 
to attempt to dictate the prayers of the pulpit and to 
repress all petitions for the President, the pulpit must 
either become subject to the pews, or squarely assert 
and defend its independence. 

The second incident, constantly rankling like a thorn 
in my side, was the secession flag, already mentioned 
in a previous chapter. It fluttered over Sixth Street, 
about half a square from my church. Going to and fro 
in the discharge of my duties, I was compelled to pass 
beneath it. With many others, I wondered why the 
military authorities did not take it down by force. 
I did not then know, what all learned later, that just 
at that time they were in pursuit of larger game; that 
they were planning to strike at the centre of secession 
in our city, and so for the moment were wisely ignoring 
its incidental manifestations. But I had reached the 
limit of my patience, and could no longer nmtely endure 
the flaunting of disloyalty. A fire was fiercely burning 
within my bones. I felt that it must have vent, or I 
should be consumed. 

It was nineteen days before the taking of Camp 
Jackson. Sunday, April 21st, dawned. It was a warm 



The Pulpit and the Press 127 

bright day. My morning audience was large and atten- 
tive, but I was far from being happy. Back of the 
morning message there was another flaming in my 
soul for expression. No one yet knew what I contem- 
plated doing in the evening. In the afternoon I met 
on the street one of my good deacons and made known 
to him my intention. Although a pronounced Unionist, 
for the sake of peace in the church and congregation he 
tried to turn me from my purpose; but when he found 
that my mind was fully made up, he said, "Well, if 
you must preach on secession, give them a 12-inch 
columbiad." He had evidently overestimated the size 
of my gun, but such as I had, it was my fixed purpose 
to fire. 

The evening came. The sky was clear. It was neither 
hot nor cold. The balmy air of spring enticed people 
from their houses. The church was unusually well-filled, 
and my secession friends were present in large numbers. 
I read for the Scripture lesson the 13th chapter of 
Romans, in which Paul teaches the duty of obedience 
to established government. Those in the pews listened 
with almost breathless interest to the words of the great 
Apostle. But while I read, two deacons of the church, 
who had been engaged in seating the congregation, 
standing under the gallery, between the doors of en- 
trance to the audience room, had this suggestive colloquy. 
Both of them were unconditional Union men; but one 
of them, formerly a citizen of Massachusetts, nervously 
anxious to keep the peace, said to the other, who had 
once lived in Maryland, and afterwards in Indiana, 
" I hope the pastor is not going to preach to-night 
from any text in that chapter." His associate in office 
replied, " Aren't you willing that your [)astor should 
take his text from any portion of the Word of God? " 



128 A Border City in the Civil War 

He responded, "I ought to sa\'' yes, but I confess that 
in the present circumstances I can't." Considering the 
sections of the Republic from which these gentlemen 
hailed, we should naturally have thought that their 
respective attitudes would have been the exact reverse. 
We should have looked for unyielding grit in the New 
Englander, and for pliancy in the Marylander. But 
happily in our country geography does not determine 
character, and this incident shows how two good men 
and true in St. Louis, in those dark days, were divided 
as to the line of action that should be taken to secure 
what they mutually and earnestly desired. 

But the service moved on. The very air seemed 
tremulous with excitement. While singing the hymn 
immediately before the sermon, anxious exf)ectation 
was depicted on the faces of the audience. I announced 
as my text Romans, the 13th chapter, the 1st and 2nd 
verses: ''Let every soul be subject unto the higher 
powers. For there is no power but of God : the powers 
that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore 
resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God : and 
they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." 

When I began to speak such a hush fell upon the con- 
gregation, that at the pauses between the sentences, 
I could hear the flicker of the gas. A large bronze-faced 
man, a stranger, had been seated near the centre of 
the audience-room, in the end of a pew, that opened 
into the middle aisle, so that he was directly before me. 
My eye instinctively turned to him and at times seemed 
to be riveted upon him. I thought that he nuist be the 
deacon of some Baptist church back in the State. At 
first he was restless, and frequently changed his position; 
so I concluded that he was a secessionist and did not 
like what I was saying. But when I was a little more 



The Pulpit and the Press 129 

than half way through my discourse, he cried out, so 
that all in the house heard him, "Amen," making the a 
long and emphatic. My wrong impression of him was 
at once corrected. He was, as I had surmised, a Baptist 
deacon, but from Illinois, not from Missouri, and his 
hearty "amen " added to the already intense excite- 
ment of the congregation. The sudden consciousness 
of having in him an ally instead of an enemy gave me 
a new sense of freedom, and I preached on with more than 
my usual ease and fervor, closing with these words: 
" I wish to bear my own individual testimony, to express 
the feelings of my heart. I love my coimtry — I love 
the government of my country — I love the freedom 
of my country. It was purchased by the blood of our 
fathers, and when I become so base, so cowardly, so 
besotted that I dare not speak out in behalf of that for 
which they so bravely fought, I pray that my tongue 
may cleave to the roof of my mouth. 

" But, brethren, we need have no fears as to the ulti- 
mate issue. The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. In 
this conflict your property may be swept away, and all 
may be reduced to a common level. Your life and mine 
may be sacrificed on the altar of our country, yet 
Jehovah, who presides over the scene, will bring the 
nation forth from the ordeal wiser, purer, nobler. If 
the scythe of rebellion is swung over our whole land, 
mowing down all of our free institutions, leave us the 
Christian family, the Christian Church, and the time- 
honored Bible, and in the track of the destroyer, they will 
spring up with new life, new power, and new glory. 
'The Lord reigneth: let the earth rejoice: let the 
multitude of isles be glad thereof.' " 

For the last hymn I gave out " My country, 'tis of 
thee." I am quite sure that it had not been sung for 



130 A Border City in the Civil War 

many months in St. Louis; at all events, as a congrega- 
tion, we had refrained from singing it lest somebody 
might be offended by it. My secession friends did not 
even deign to open their hymn-books, but stood dumb 
while we sang. But compensations for their silence 
had been providentially provided. A part of a congre- 
gation of loyal Methodists, passing our house of worship 
on the way home from their evening service, had crowded 
into the vestibule, and listened to the close of my 
discourse ; lingering there, they sang the national hymn 
as only Methodists can. Also a band of loyal Unitarians 
going along Locust Street by the church just as we began 
to sing, stood on the sidewalk, under the open windows, 
and sang with fervor. Half a square away a gentleman, 
sitting in his parlor with its windows shut, heard our 
patriotic song and was glad. 

At the close of the service, a stranger unceremoniously 
approached me, and with some excitement of manner 
asked, "Do you expect to remain in the city?" I 
assured him that I did, but that it was a matter of indif- 
ference to me whether I did or not. Expressing the 
opinion that the people of the city would not permit 
me to remain, he disappeared in the departing crowd. 
Who he was, whence he came and whither he went, 
I knew not. From my own soul a burden had been 
lifted. As well as I could, I had spoken on behalf of 
our country. My mistake was that I had not spoken 
sooner. With a light heart I went back to my home 
and slept. 

I must now mention what was to me an exceedingly 
important event, to which on account of its sacredness 
I should make no allusion if it were not intertwined 
with an incident which sets in a startling light the 
determination of not a few in St. Louis at that time to 



The Pulpit and the Press 131 

suppress, even by brute force, freedom of speech. Two 
days after the deUvery of my sermon on " The Duty of 
Obedience to EstabHshed Government," profoundly 
believing in the Union, I was married. But our city 
was so agitated and divided, that it was deemed best both 
by m}^ bride and myself to make but a short wedding 
trip. We thought that we should not be long absent 
from pressing duties at home. So we went no farther 
than Cincinnati. We left behind us a fiagless city; but 
when we reached the great city on the Ohio, it was just 
one gorgeous bouquet of national banners. The exhilara- 
tion and ecstasy of that scene no words can express. 
The remembered experience, the patriotic exultation 
of that hour, lingers like undimmed sunshine in my soul. 
W^e remained in Cincinnati over the following Sunday. 
By a happy prearrangement, the young and eloquent 
Irish preacher of Quincy, Illinois, Rev. H. M. Gallaher, 
supplied my pulpit. As he began the evening service, 
a turbulent crowd gathered on Sixth and Locust Streets, 
in front and by the side of the church. They had evi- 
dently come together to mob me for my discourse the 
week before. When Mr. Gallaher was offering prayer 
before the sermon, some one of the crowd on Locust 
Street hurled a brickbat through the window, immedi- 
ately to the left of the pulpit; the great window-pane 
was shivered in pieces, but the missile aimed at the 
preacher happily failed to reach its mark. It was caught 
by a Venetian blind and fell harmless to the floor. In 
spite of the sudden, unexpected crash, the plucky 
Irishman prayed on as though nothing had happened, 
and his cool persistence probably averted further dis- 
aster. My marriage had been a private one. Only a few 
intimate friends had witnessed it. Nobody had adver- 
tised it; so those intent on executing mob law upon me 



132 A Border City in the Civil War 

quite naturally supposed that I was in my pulpit. But, 
for some unknown reason, somebody in that vengeful 
throng began to suspect that their coveted game had 
slipped through their toils. While the fearless preacher 
in the pulpit continued to pray in apparent oblivion 
to splintering glass and a falling, resounding brickbat, 
two men from the mob without, pushing partly open 
one of the doors of the audience room, intently watched 
him. They evidently became satisfied before he closed 
his prayer that the object of their malice had in some 
way eluded them. They reported to the noisy, angry 
crowd in the street. The clamor gradually subsided. 
There followed for a few minutes a murmur of voices, 
then the disappointed multitude little by little melted 
away. 

This menacing event greatly disturbed the officers 
of my church. Knowing the train on which we were 
returning to St. Louis, several of them came to greet 
us and tell us of the mob. They feared that it might 
gather again to carry out its fell purpose, and anxiously 
asked what line of action would be wisest and best? 
In a moment I decided what I should do. I told them 
that those who did not hear my sermon, but had learned 
of it merely from flying rumor, had exaggerated and 
false notions concerning it; that they had unquestion- 
ably misconceived its spirit; that I would at once write 
it out, just as I had uttered it in the pulpit, and print 
it in The Missouri Republican; that that journal of 
doubtful loyalty gladly pubhshed articles on both sides 
of the national question, and was very generally read 
by the secessionists; and that when those who were 
bent on mobbing their fellow citizens for their honestly 
expressed political views should read it, they would not 
fail to see that it was not quite as objectionable as 



The Pulpit and the Press 133 

they supposed, and would lay aside their vengeful pur- 
pose. 

Those who had anxiously sought my counsel approved, 
some of them with apparent reluctance, this proposed 
line of action. So I went directly from the boat on which 
we were ferried over the river, to my study, sat down 
to my self-appointed task, and did not rise until it was 
done. Over the sermon I wrote the following explana- 
tory and conciliatory note. 

" Since the delivery of this sermon, on the evening 
of April 21st, its statements and sentiments have been 
greatly misrepresented. While it was not prepared for 
publication, no word of it in fact having been written 
before its delivery, at the suggestion of judicious freinds, 
we give it to the press, in order to correct the mistate- 
ments that have been made." 

I at once carried my manuscript to the editors of 
The Republican, who apparently received it with pleasure. 
The next day it was published, and having been so 
extensively talked about, it was widely read. The effect 
of its publication was just what I had anticipated. 
The excitement aroused by the spoken discourse, whose 
scope and spirit had been greatly misapprehended by 
those who did not hear it, measurably died away; but 
no one thereafter doubted where my pulpit stood on 
the vexed question which was then dividing the nation. 

The next Sunday morning, when I stepped into my 
pulpit, I had before me one striking evidence of the 
effectiveness of my patriotic sermon. In one entire row 
of pews, stretching from the pulpit to the outer door, 
there were only three families. There my secession 
friends, whom I highly esteemed, had been accustomed 
to sit; but a discourse on loyalty to the general govern- 
ment had driven them away, never to return. That 



134 A Border City in the Civil War 

row of empty pews was on the north side of the middle 
aisle, but a Southern brother of high standing with a 
twinkle in his eye said to me, "That is the South side of 
the house." We deeply regretted to lose those who so 
unceremoniously left us; but as no man or set of men 
is indispensable, we went on prosperously without them. 
Their departure in some measure strengthened us. 
They had been a disturbing element, and after they 
had gone, we had that power that flows from unity of 
spirit and action. 

They took with them when they seceded a bright 
young Scotchman; but after an absence of six weeks, 
he returned. At the close of the morning service he 
very cordially greeted me, and said in his broad Scotch 
accent: '' I suppose you have noticed that I have been 
away. I went with the rest, and we were foolish enough 
to think that when we departed the roof of the church 
would fall in and the walls would fall down; but every 
morning, when I went to business, I looked over this 
way, and saw that she still stood, and so I thought I 
would come back." But all did not have the horse- 
sense of this Scotchman; only a few of the seceders ever 
returned, but others came to take their places, and by 
the following October the pews were fuller than ever; 
but many who sat in them wore the shoulder-straps of 
army officers. 

There was, however, one sad, yet ludicrous, incident, 
connected with my sermon on " Obedience to the State," 
which shows that the brutal spirit of the mob was not 
wholly extinct. On Locust Street, two squares west 
of our house of worship, stood the Central Presbyterian 
Church. Its pastor was Rev. S. J. P. Anderson, D. D. 
He had occupied that position for fifteen or twenty 
years, and both on account of the length of his pastorate 



The Pulpit and the Press 135 

and his acknowledged ability was generally known, 
even among non-churchgoers, while I, having the same 
surname, had been in St. Louis not quite three years. 
It was therefore perfectly natural for godless outsiders 
to attribute to him my pulpit utterances, which had 
stirred up so much bad blood. So they determined to 
''.hastise him for what I had said. Now he was a seces- 
sionist. In the preceding winter he had preached the 
sermon to which we have already alluded, on " The 
Ultimatum of the South." While of course he would 
have utterly condemned all mob violence, still the 
men who had marked him out for brutal usage were 
in political fellowship with him. They watched for an 
opportunity to carry out their ruthless purpose, and 
found it. He was accustomed, every Saturday night, 
just at dusk, to go to the Post-office, at the corner of 
Third and Pine Streets, to get his mail. There was then 
no free delivery. His assailants hid themselves in an 
alley which ran into Pine Street, and as he was pass- 
ing by, threw brickbats at him, one of which struck 
him on the cheek, and knocked him down. The next 
day his face was so swollen and painful that he could not 
preach. They aimed at me and hit him. They igno- 
rantly knocked down their own political ally. They 
compelled him to be my substitute. He unwillingly 
suffered in my stead. He soon recovered, and I hast- 
ened to assure him of my deep regret that he had been 
compelled to suffer vicariously for me. To which he very 
naturally replied: "Yes, indeed, I don't wish to be mixed 
up with you." Nor did I wish to be politically mixed 
up with him, however useful in this case it had been to 
me. On one point we were in absolute agreement, our 
mutual desire not to be confounded with each other in the 
public mind. 



136 A Border City in the Civil War 

Two more incidents, though pertaining wholly to 
my own church and congregation, are worthy of notice, 
as revealing the peculiai" sensitiveness of those among 
whom we lived and toiled. My secession brethren 
determined if possible to oust me from my pastorate; 
they declared that their opposition to me was solely 
because I had introduced politics into the pulpit. To 
carry out their purpose, they drew up a paper setting 
forth their grievances, and urgently praying me to 
resign. They made an extended canvass for signatures, 
but had such meagre success that they abandoned their 
project. 

They then sent a committee to me, asking that, inas- 
much as I had fully expressed my views on the great 
national issue, I would hereafter refrain from all utter- 
ance on the subject in my pulpit, promising, if I would 
enter into such an agreement, that they would resume 
their places and duties in the church. But I assured 
them that, while it would give me great pleasure to yield 
to their wishes, I could not enter into any such compact; 
that I might be under solemn obligation to speak again, 
and that I must not become a party to any bargain 
that would debar me from doing my whole duty. My 
answer enraged the chairman of the committee, and he 
declared that I wanted "to kick them out of the church." 
I replied, "You will bear witness that that is your lan- 
guage, not mine. I should be glad to keep you all in 
the church, and have you willingly grant me unrestricted 
freedom of speech ; but whether you go or stay I cannot 
put my neck under the yoke that you have prepared 
for it." With this interview, so far as I am aware, 
ended their efforts to drive me from my post or to padlock 
my lips. 
The sermon that provoked so much opposition had in 



The Pulpit and the Press 137 

itself no special merit. It was the time of its utterance, 
and the circumstances in which we were then living, 
that gave it importance. It proved to have been the 
first out and out Union sermon preached in St. Louis, 
and, with the sermons of other preachers North and 
South, was published in Moore's Rebellion Record. 
There are some sentences in it that must be set down 
both to the hot blood of youth and the aggravation 
of the times; but at all events it was an utterance 
of intense conviction. 

But in our varied experiences it is clear that the good 
far outweighed the bad. There was more honey than 
gall, more love than hate, more self-sacrificing toil for 
others than self-seeking; and while some Christian 
pastors were anxious and harassed, and all churches 
were more or less agitated and some of them divided, 
in the face of a common danger, sectarianism for the 
time being seemed to be utterly swept away. In the 
loyal churches men and women, irrespective of denom- 
ination, frequently met to pray for the Republic. 
Trinitarian and Unitarian, Baptist and Methodist, 
Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Episcopalian stood 
or kneeled side by side and poured out their petitions 
to God for our distracted city and country. They 
prayed with special fervency for the President, his 
Cabinet, the deliberating Congress and gathering 
army. 

In addition to the meetings in the different churches, 
we frequently met for prayer at nine o'clock in the 
morning in one of the large halls of the city. There were 
often from fifteen hundred to two thousand present. 
At the close of each devotional hour the whole congre- 
gation rose and simultaneously lifting up their right 
hands repeated in concert, after the leader of the meet- 



138 A Border City in the Civil War 

ing, the oath of allegiance to the government of the 
United States. During my life I have looked upon 
many impressive scenes, but never upon one so morally 
sublime as that. At each repetition of that oath, the 
loyalty of every one that took it with his hand uplifted 
to the God of nations, daily grew deeper and stronger. 
Every one thus crowning his prayer for his country with 
his oath of fealty to it went out from those meetings 
with a mightier purpose to do all within his power to 
maintain the integrity of the Union. 

There were many very peculiar incidents in the 
churches, growing out of the excitement of the time, 
some of which are indelibly impressed upon my mind. 
An eccentric lawyer regularly attended the weekly 
prayer-meeting of my church. He rightly held that we 
should be specific in our prayers, and lived up fully 
to his conviction. He was very tall, and while offering 
prayer he usually stood by a supporting post and leaned 
his head sidewise against it, reminding one of a massive 
prop placed to strengthen a weakening pillar. In that 
unusual attitude of body, he asked God with minute 
particularity for the things that he desired. When he 
prayed for any public official or general in the army he 
called him by name. He prayed for the soldiers that 
they might have good health and strength, and courage 
in battle, and be obedient to their commanding officers, 
and that God would direct the Minie balls when they 
shot and make them effective, that the enemies of our 
country might be speedily subdued. Whatever any 
one may think of such prayers, they at all events caught 
the attention of even the dullest and waked up the 
sleepers. 

We note also a very different incident, which was 
still more indicative of the feelings which at that time 



The Pulpit and the Press 139 

swayed many minds in our city. A lady of my congre- 
gation was exceedingly prejudiced against preaching 
politics, without having any clear notion of what 
politics was. She once sat immediately before me when 
I was speaking to the children of the Sunday-school. 
To illustrate and enforce my thought, I related an 
incident concerning a drummer-boy, whereupon she 
nudged with her elbow a woman who sat by her side, 
and said in a tone so loud that I distinctly heard her, 
" I do wish the pastor would let politics alone." 

An excellent Presbyterian pastor, with whom I often 
conversed, was greatly perplexed as to whether he 
should preach on the subject of secession. He was 
intensely loyal; but his church was not large and in 
national politics was apparently about equally divided. 
In determining his duty he sought my counsel. I told 
him that, taking into account all the circumstances, 
he ought in my judgment to forego, for a time at least, 
the public discussion of the national problem. While 
he seemed satisfied that I had pointed out what was 
wisCvSt for him to do, he found it very difficult to keep 
silent concerning his country even for a season. Pa- 
triotism burned hotly within his heart. To get some 
relief he preached one Sunday afternoon on Paul's 
words, "I have fought the good fight." He began his 
sermon by saying, "There are then some fights that 
are good. The fight against sin is a good fight. The 
fight against the devil is a good fight." But just as he 
pronounced the last sentence, a pew-door flew open 
spitefully, and one of the ablest women of his church 
walked excitedly down the middle aisle and out of the 
outer door, never again to return. Immediately after 
the service he went to see her. He went too soon. She 
had not had time to cool; moreover his prompt visit 



140 A Border City in the Civil War 

tended to pamper her self-importance. He gently 
asked why she left the church so abruptly? She replied 
that she left because she was offended, and said that 
she thought he ought not to have preached from that 
text. But he inquired why that text displeased her. 
She said, "Did you not say that some fights are good 
fights? " " Certainly," he repUed, " and are they not? " 
"Oh, yes," she responded, " but you meant the fight 
against the Southern Confederacy." That was probably 
the fact. He was giving, perhaps unconsciously, just 
a little vent to his own flaming patriotism. She felt 
it. She intuitively knew it. He could not persuade 
her to return to her place and her duty. That good pas- 
tor, sorely beset and tried, at last delivered fully his 
patriotic message and resigned. From such an event 
we learn how difficult it was to be a good and faithful 
minister of Christ in a border city at the beginning of our 
civil war. 

But there were also many cheering occurrences during 
those dismal days ; some deeds of sense and self-restraint 
illumined the thickening gloom. 

" How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world." 

Early in 1861, before the river to the South was ob- 
structed, a Christian gentleman from Mississippi often 
came up to St. Louis on business. Whenever he stayed 
over Sunday he worshipped with my congregation. 
He was a pro-slavery man and a secessionist. In those 
days I always prayed publicly for the country, for all 
that were in authority, and that all efforts to break 
up the Union might be thwarted. One of my brethren 
asked him if the prayers did not offend him. He pleas- 



The Pulpit and the Press 141 

antly replied, " No, not at all; I pray with your pastor 
till he gets to the country, and then I just skip that." 
He was one of those rare souls that in a time of discord 
and conflict are lifted above unseemly passion, and kept 
with his brethren, from whom he politically differed, 
" the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." 

Nor must I fail to notice a warm-hearted, impulsive 
member of my church, a Kentuckian by birth. He firmly 
believed that secession was constitutional and right, and 
that slavery was of divine origin. He had not yet learned 
that " what is inhuman cannot be divine." He was filled 
with indignation when I maintained in the pulpit that 
there was no just cause for rebellion against the Federal 
government, and that instead we were under solemn 
obligation to obey it; notwithstanding, soon after he 
invited me, together with my wife, to dine at his house 
just outside the city. At the appointed time he sent 
his carriage for us. On our arrival, after warmly greet- 
ing us at the gate, he said to me, "I think that you had 
no right to preach on the subject of secession; but you 
thought you had, and I do not think that this difference 
of opinion should destroy our Christian fellowship. 
You have had your say, and now that I have had mine, 
be so good as to walk into the house and make your- 
selves at home." I assured him that his position was 
altogether satisfactory to me; and that I rejoiced that 
we could hold and express antagonistic political views 
without marring our brotherly love. Considering how 
fiery the disposition of this good man was, the stand 
that he took was as gratifying as it was surprising. 
The grace of the gentle and forgiving Lord, in whom 
he trusted and whom he loved, had in some measure 
been imparted to his own soul. Thus in the midst 
of much that was unlovely and repulsive there were 



142 A Border City in the Civil War 

here and there many noble acts that fascinated us, and 
allured us to Christ-like living. 

From the few incidents which we have here presented, 
it is painfully evident that at the beginning of the war 
the influence of the pulpits and churches of St. Louis 
in shaping public opinion on national questions was 
sadly divided. Some of them were decidedly for the 
Union; some were just as decidedly for secession; in 
some churches the membership was so evenly divided 
between Unionism and secessionism that it was deemed 
inexpedient to make any allusion in the pulpit to the 
great national issue. All things considered, the pre- 
ponderating influence of the pulpits and churches 
seemed to be in favor of secession. But as time rolled 
on the Union sentiment of the churches gradually 
became stronger, and before the close of the war de- 
cidedly predominant. Some pastors, unquestionably 
loyal to the general government, at first doubted the 
expediency of publicly expressing their views, but finally 
boldly uttered their entire thought. As a whole the 
Union pastors were as true as steel, and each in his own 
chosen time, in the midst of clashing forces and inter- 
ests, unflinchingly did his patriotic duty. The state of 
affairs was such as might reasonably have baffled the 
wisdom of the wisest. It was a time that tried men's 
souls. 

But the press was quite as dubious in its testimony 
and influence as the pulpit. There were in our city over 
fifty periodicals of all sorts. Full half of these either 
advocated or apologized for secession; and some of 
those that stood for the Union were faint-hearted and 
spoke with hesitation and feebleness. There were 
eleven dailies, great and small — and some of them were 
very small, their editors scarcely knowing in the tumult 



The Pulpit and the Press 143 

surging around them whether their souls were their 
own. And since to a large extent each citizen took 
his cue from the paper that he read, the press, take it 
all in all, propagated among the masses of the city much 
of its own dubiousness and bewilderment. However 
among the dailies were two great political organs, that 
did much to mould public sentiment. The Missouri 
Democrat and The Missouri Republican. Their very 
names confused strangers, since the Democrat was the 
organ of the Republicans, and the Republican was the 
organ of the Democrats. The Democrat years before 
had been established in the interests of Free-soilism, 
which had long been a pronounced and growing senti- 
ment in Missouri and especially in St. Louis. It naturally 
therefore became the organ of the Republican party, 
and was uncompromisingly for the Union. Its trumpet 
always rang out loud and clear; it had no uncertain 
sound. The paper had able editors who advocated 
the cause of the Union with unusual clearness, breadth 
and power. They permitted no one, whether he were 
keen or dull, to misunderstand them. So, in a reign of 
doubt and bitter conflict, their paper became a mighty 
ally of the Federal government, and did much to bring 
order out of confusion, to harmonize antagonistic forces, 
and at last to restore the reign of civil law. It is doubt- 
ful if this great journal ever received its just meed of 
praise. Noiselessly, day by day, it scattered in thou- 
sands of homes its message in behalf of the Union. That 
message gradually cleared the vision of those who read. 
Friends of the general government were multiplied by 
it. It was a tremendous force for the right. Its influ- 
ence for all that was truest and best in government 
can no more be gathered up and weighed than one 
can collect and weigh the sunbeams. 



144 A Border City in the Civil War 

Its great rival, The Missouri Republican, was also a 
power, and, on the whole, for good. It was exceedingly 
conservative, and by its utterances did much to moderate 
and cool burning and unreasoning passion. It seemed 
usually to be nicely balanced on the fence. It had 
two editors, one a secessionist, the other a Unionist. 
The secessionist was somewhat advanced in years and, 
after writing his editorial, left his office for the day 
about four o'clock in the afternoon. The Unionist editor 
was much younger, and wrote his editorial about nine 
o'clock at night. And these two editorials, con- 
servatively advocating opposite views of the great 
national conflict, daily appeared side by side. But 
this old and influential journal was very widely read, and, 
consistently with its position of neutrality, published any 
decent and reasonable article for, or against, the Union. 
Its constituency, though largely disloyal in sentiment, 
read what it published on behalf of the Union. So to 
their own advantage, as well as to that of the Federal 
government, they were thus led to read and think much 
on both sides of the question that was then dividing 
the nation. But the general public, deeming it a weak- 
ness and a sign of duplicity to receive and publish all 
sorts of articles, advocating the most diverse and con- 
tradictory views, with more force than elegance dubbed 
this great paper, "The swill-tub." Nevertheless, it 
seems reasonable, all things considered, that to have 
had then and there one such journal was a mighty 
power for good. 

Early in the summer of 1861, when the people had 
become eager for war news, some of the papers began 
to issue evening editions. This new move was sensational 
simply because it was unusual. A wag, commenting 
upon it, said, "They issue these evening editions to 



The Pulpit and the Press 145 

contradict the lies that they tell in the morning." But 
neither editors nor their critics, especially in times of 
social upheaval and commotion, can at once determine 
what among flying rumors is true and what is false. 

Now if we ask in what direction at the beginning of 
the war, the press of St. Louis threw its influence, we 
see that taken as a whole, like the pulpit, it was double- 
tongued. Some journals were for and some against 
secession. Some were vacillating, at times both for and 
against — they blew both hot and cold ; some were 
simply bewildered; some half-apologized for the rebel- 
lion; some were lost in the fog of State sovereignty. 
The editors on either side of the national question, 
and those on the fence, were doubtless honest; never- 
theless their varied and discordant voices confused 
the public mind. It was not strange that the people 
were divided. They listened to a divided pulpit; they 
read the deliverances of a divided press. But while 
amid this din of antagonistic voices some were confused, 
many in downright earnestness began to think for them- 
selves, and in spite of the clashing utterances of the 
pulpit and the press, at last thought themselves out 
of the mist into the clear light of day. 



CHAPTER IX 

DECISION AND DIVISION 

As soon as Camp Jackson had been taken, and the 
panic which so closely followed it was over, a new spirit 
pervaded the entire community. Those who had been 
halting between Unionism and secession felt almost 
irresistibly impelled to decide with which party they 
would act. And those who from the start had quietly 
but firmly allied themselves with the one or the other, and 
for prudential reasons had refrained from declaring 
their political faith, now felt constrained to show their 
true colors. The process of open alignment was rapid. 
Society seemed to be suddenly transformed. We felt 
as though we had been transported in a state of uncon- 
sciousness to another world and when there had waked 
up in astonishment, gazing upon new and strange scenes. 
At first some thought that the celerity with which men 
were being converted to Unionism was marvellous; 
but in this they were deceived. There were, to be sure, 
many striking pohtical conversions, but in the vast 
majority of cases, what amazed observers was not 
conversion, but a frank and open declaration of prin- 
ciples that up to that hour had been secretly held. 
Almost everybody seemed to be confessing his political 
faith. The star-spangled banner which, out of defer- 
ence to the feelings of secession neighbors, had been so 
long concealed, began to be hung out from the balconies 



Decision and Division 147 

and windows of public buildings and private dwellings. 
It now waved from the cupolas of schoolhouses and 
even from the steeples of some of the churches. Union 
teamsters decked their mules and horses with it. Little 
children on their way to school, or playing in the streets, 
carried it. Just as sometimes in the spring the sudden 
coming of the warm sunshine and showers stars the 
cherry and apple trees all over with blossoms, so our 
city, so long bannerless, all at once bloomed with the 
Stars and Stripes. Badges made of strips of red, white 
and blue were also extensively worn both by men and 
women, while on every side, at morning, noon and 
night, could be heard the song born of the hour, " Hurrah ! 
For the Red, White and Blue." And the suddenness 
of this outburst of patriotism for a time threw those 
who had been struggling in doubt and gloom to prevent 
the secession of Missouri into a delirium of joy. 

Nevertheless secessionism in St. Louis was neither 
dead nor hopeless. It was, to be sure, for the time 
being overawed; but it was in fact as tenacious and 
determined as ever. Our disloyal fellow citizens were 
led to believe that the city would be at last captured 
by the rebel army, and both it and the State turned over 
to the Southern Confederacy. So, bating neither heart 
nor hope, they labored incessantly for the realization 
of this purpose. In secret they plotted to secure the 
secession of the State. Protected by United States troops, 
they harbored in their homes spies from the rebel army. 
Some of them themselves acted the part of spies and 
were arrested for their crime. Many of them contributed 
freely of their substance to help disrupt the Union and 
establish the Confederacy. But while they worked 
clandestinely, — as they were compelled to do if they 
worked at all, — most of them in social intercourse 



148 A Border City in the Civil War 

manfully declared their sentiments. In fact the time 
had at last come when true men on either side abhorred 
those sordid souls that sat on the fence, ready for the 
sake of pelf, at the opportune moment, to jump off 
upon the side of those who should chance to be victori- 
ous. The words of Dryden in his '' Duke of Guise," 
written concerning the Whigs and Tories of his day, 
slightly altered, fittingly depict them. 

Not friends, nor rebels they ; nor this, nor that ; 
Not birds, nor beasts ; but just a kind of bat ; 
A twilight animal ; true to neither cause, 
With union wings, but rebel teeth and claws.^ 

One of my own deacons, a true and brave man, at 
first hesitated as to the stand he ought to take. With 
him it was a matter of conscience. He was not swayed 
by any sordid motive. His associations had been largely 
with Southern and pro-slavery men. He regretted that 
I had felt impelled to speak from my pulpit for the Union. 
But when asked by some of his secession brethren to 
sign a petition to which I have already referred, asking 
me to resign my pastorate, he began earnestly to think 
what he ought to do. He said to those that solicited 
him to put his name to that petition, "I have never 
yet openly opposed any one of my pastors; and even 
now, while I regret that our present pastor publicly 
discussed a political question, I cannot sign this petition 
without careful consideration. I wish to take it home 
with me to-night, and pray over it, before I decide 
what to do in reference to it." He prayed. He deter- 

* " Not whiggs, nor tories they; nor this, nor that; 
Not birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat; 
A twilight animal; true to neither cause, 
With tory wings, but whiggish teeth and claws." 

— Duke of Guise, Prol. 



Decision and Division 149 

mined not to sign it. He began to think as never before. 
He now observed that all the newspapers and journals 
that came to his house were pro-slavery and secession; 
and he decided to secure for daily reading some that 
presented the opposite view. He at once subscribed 
for two Union papers. He looked over his library and 
did not find a book in it that was antagonistic to slavery. 
He went at once to a bookstore and bought three anti- 
slavery books, which he carefully read. Within a few 
days his mind was completely revolutionized. He had 
decided what to do. Every fibre of his being was for the 
Union. He soon called me into his office and said: 
" Pastor, you made one serious mistake. You ought 
to have preached against secession at least three months 
before you did." And the good deacon was undoubtedly 
right. From that time all measures taken for the pres- 
ervation of the Union seemed to him to be dilatory. 
He chafed because the President held back his emanci- 
pation proclamation. After the war was over, St. Louis 
sent him to Washington as one of its representatives. 
But we should not forget how much such a decision 
made in that time of political upheaval cost him. It 
may seem easy to us now, but it tried the soul then. 
It broke up old associations, and for a time at least 
made lifelong friends enemies. 

In my own neighborhood there lived a most excellent 
Christian family. It consisted of husband and wife and 
four or five children. The children, I should judge, 
were from twelve to eighteen years of age. But the 
father and mother were divided on the great national 
issue. He was decidedly for the Union, she just ais 
decidedly for the Southern Confederacy. At the dinner 
hour almost every day, in the presence of their children, 
they hotly discussed the question on which they were 



150 A Border City in the Civil War 

divided. This procedure at last menaced the union of 
the household. But with good sense, the father, be- 
fore his whole family, proposed to the mother that, 
for the sake of peace in their home, they declare 
a truce until the close of the war. The wife and 
mother acceded to this timely proposal. The na- 
tional question was never thereafter mooted under 
that roof; but when the war ended I noticed that the 
wife as well as the husband was for the Union. Silence 
and events had prevailed. But this divided household 
was not an isolated case. There were scores of families 
in the city made discordant and unhappy over the burn- 
ing issue of the hour. 

In those days of decision there was a distinguished 
judge of one of our courts who was a Southerner by 
birth and education. He was pro-slavery in sentiment, 
but a decisive, ardent Union man. One morning he 
met an old Southern friend at the Post-office, whither 
in those days we all went for our mail. As usual they 
cordially greeted each other. Then the judge said to 
him: " I understand from others that you are an enemy 
of the Old Flag? " He replied that he was. Then 
responded the judge, " You are my enemy. Never 
recognize me again by look or word." That decision 
was positive and irreversible; the division was sharp 
and irreconcilable. 

Living on the same square with myself was a man of 
Southern birth. He was a pleasant, agreeable gentle- 
man. I held him in high esteem. I had been called by 
him to minister in his household in a time of sickness 
and death. Tenderness of feeUng had marked our 
intercourse in those sad days. He and I had never 
exchanged a word on the subject of secession. Still, 
one morning as I met him and as usual saluted him, he 



Decision and Division 151 

did not, as he had been wont to do, return my salutation. 
I concluded that, absorbed in something else, he did not 
see me. I could not believe that his seeming discourtesy 
was intended. Two or three days after, I greeted him 
again, but obtained from him no sign of recognition. 
I determined not to give up my friend without one more 
effort. A week later I met him on the sidewalk near his 
own door, stood within four feet of him, looked him 
straight in the face, and said, " Good morning," calhng 
him by name; but he made no response either by word 
or look. He was no longer my friend, but my enemy. 
Why? He had learned from others that I was for the 
Union, — that was the explanation of his rudeness. 
During all the war we frequently met, but passed each 
other as though we were walking, insensate posts. 
I always felt a strong impulse to speak once more, but 
I checked it, lest speaking might give to my dumb 
neighbor useless ofTence. Such experiences as this were 
peculiar to those who lived in a border city during the 
war of the rebelhon. 

But the open alignment of men and women in our 
city for or against the Union, disturbed, if it did not 
destroy, in many of our churches the Christian fellow- 
ship that had hitherto existed. Where the member- 
ship of a church was politically very largely of the same 
mind, the friction arising from the few in opposition, 
while deplorable, did not very seriously interfere with 
its general harmony. In such a case the small minority 
either remained and held its peace, or else withdrew 
noisily or quietly, while the main body of the church, 
freed from irritation and unified, continued its legitimate 
work with increased power and efficiency. But where 
the members of a church were about equally divided 
on the great national issue their contention sometimes 



152 A Border City in the Civil War 

became acrimonious. When such conflict was waged, 
brotherly love was overwhelmed, and the very existence 
of the church itself was imperilled. I well knew one such 
church. It occupied, in the northern part of our city, 
a very important field for aggressive Christian work, 
but by its internal dissensions its influence for good was 
neutralized. It was of course no wonder that they were 
absorbed in the gigantic national battle then being 
waged. Not only the most vital political interests were 
at stake, but a great moral question was submitted 
to the arbitrament of the sword. These Christian men 
and women were irresistibly impelled to take sides. Some 
of them were fighting for the Union and against slavery ; 
others against the Union and for slaver5^ They were all 
honest and intensely earnest. The government of their 
church was democratic, and they were continually 
counting noses. Each party sharply watched the other 
lest in some unexpected exigency it should be outvoted. 
Their pastor, worn out by their belligerency, resigned 
and quit the city. All real Christian work in that church 
was now at a standstill. Something must be done to 
prevent the church itself from being blotted out. The 
case was desperate and called for heroic treatment. 

The remedy was forthcoming. A neighboring pastor, 
who had at heart both the highest good of his country and 
of the kingdom of God, persuaded two of his brethren 
to take their letters from his church and to unite with 
that. They did so, and that gave those there who were 
loyal to their country a majority. With them he con- 
sidered a series of measures, which both he and they 
believed to be for the highest good of that contentious 
and divided Christian body. A meeting was called to 
consider them. Some of these measures were very dis- 
tasteful to the secession party in the church; so they were 



Decision and Division 153 

long and hotly debated. That memorable meeting 
began at eight o'clock in the evening and did not ad- 
journ until two o'clock the next morning. A little 
after one in the morning a measure long and stub- 
bornly resisted by the secessionists passed by a bare 
majority; in their resentment a half dozen of them 
asked for letters of dismission; these were of course 
promptly granted; when they discovered that by their 
spiteful withdrawal they had given their opponents 
an assured majority, they requested to be restored to 
membership again, but their request was ignored. And 
now for a time pandemonium seemed to have broken 
loose. A half dozen of either party were on their feet 
at once, each in loud tones addressing the moderator, 
while he pounded with his gavel and cried, " Order! 
Order! " At last the tempest subsided. The dis- 
comfited left. The remaining projected measures were 
quickly passed, and the meeting adjourned. Both the 
victors and the vanquished were all good brethren. But 
both did what, under soberer circumstances, they would 
not approve. Nevertheless, after that stormy business 
meeting prosperity came to that church. Their house 
of worship, which had been only half constructed, was 
soon after finished. A strong, level-headed pastor was 
called, and a Sunday-school of more than a thousand 
pupils met there every Lord's day. 

The divisive work, which we are endeavoring to set 
forth, went on through almost the whole period of the 
war. As late as January 9th, 1862, it appeared in the 
Chamber of Commerce. A number of Union business 
men applied for membership. The secession members 
of the Chamber were bitterly opposed to their admission, 
and by the ballots which they controlled secured their 
defeat. This insulting and unbusiness-like act split 



154 A Border City in the Civil War 

the Chamber of Commerce in twain. The Union mem- 
bers withdrew and estabhshed the Union Chamber of 
Commerce. Thus at the very centre of trade in our city 
corrupt pohtics overruled legitimate business. For a 
time the eternal laws of exchange gave place to scheming 
policies of secession. In that border city, men who did 
not believe in the Union and in free labor refused for 
awhile even to barter with those who did. Every 
human association seemed to be rent asunder. But 
this unjust and short-sighted action of the secessionists 
in the Chamber of Commerce stirred up much bad 
feeling throughout the city. It was vehemently de- 
nounced. Very few outside the extreme disunionists 
rose up to defend it. It was folly so unmitigated that 
it soon reacted on its authors; what they attempted 
to make a stronghold of secession soon ceased even to 
exist, and the Union Chamber of Commerce remained 
without a rival; and there every worthy business man 
was welcomed irrespective of his political opinions. 

But notable events, in swift succession, were now 
casting new light on the problems over which armed 
hosts were contending and for the solution of which 
they were freely pouring out their blood. The views of 
receptive souls were rapidly becoming broader and 
more national. Some original secessionists under the 
increasing illumination joined the Unionists, and did 
it at great personal self-sacrifice. Their Southern 
friends looked upon them as traitors to the Southern 
Confederacy, and scorned them. They cut them on 
the street; they socially ostracizetl them. It required 
great moral courage in one born and bred in the South, 
to become, in that border city, an out-and-out, patriotic 
nationalist. But no inconsiderable number were equal 
to the demand. For the sake of an undivided country 



Decision and Division 155 

they gave up tender social relations and the amenities 
of life and boldly proclaimed their change of heart. 

In illustration of this I wish briefly to call attention 
to one of the many converts to Unionism. Just before 
the war there was a slave auction on the steps of the 
Court-house. An artist, Mr. Thomas S. Noble, made 
sketches of the impressive and shameful scene. He 
was a Southerner, but from a child had been opposed 
to the system of slavery. He then and there determined 
from the sketches which he had made to depict on canvas 
that sale of men and women under the hammer of the 
auctioneer. But he was too busy with other work to put 
his hand at once to this projected task. And while it was 
deferred the war broke out. Out of sympathy for the 
people of the South he enlisted as a soldier in the Con- 
federate army. When the term of his enlistment ex- 
pired, he returned to St. Louis, and took up again the 
work of his studio. On account of his absence his 
patrons to a considerable extent had fallen away from 
him. He found that he had leisure time on his hands, 
and so determined to begin the work of painting the slave 
auction, projected so long before. In his mind this 
public sale of men and women was a typical national 
crime. It was sanctioned by both State and national 
law. The steps of the Court-house in which both were 
interpreted and enforced became without protest a 
slave mart. The Stars and Stripes floating over the 
heads of the auctioneer and cowering slaves exposed 
to the gaze of the curious throng made the sale a national 
offence. Under a sense of this flagrant national injustice 
he began to paint and the product was a mighty protest 
against the crime of legalized bondage. With his sword 
he had just been fighting for slavery and the Southern 
Confederacy; now with his brush, he was contending 



156 A Border City in the Civil War 

against both. And his brush was mightier than his 
sword. 

But he was soon put to the severest test. What he 
had painted with exhilaration and joy brought upon 
him the sharpest of trials. In a social way some 
highly esteemed Southern friends dropped into his 
studio. For the first time they looked on his slave 
auction, or " Slave Mart " as he called it. Knowing 
nothing of his real attitude towards slavery, they never- 
theless at once felt the powerful protest which that new 
painting uttered against slavery and its accompanying 
evils. 

In the front window of a picture store on Fourth 
Street the artists of the city were accustomed to display 
their paintings. The Southern friends of Mr. Noble, 
as in his studio they gazed upon his embodied protest 
against slave auctions, anxiously asked: " Are you going 
to exhibit that painting in the window on Fourth 
Street? " He replied that he had thought of doing so. 
They said, " If you do, you shall have no social standing 
with us. Our relations with you will end forever." 

Almost all of the artist's intimate friends were South- 
erners. To be cut by them in that way seemed to him 
a very bitter trial. For the moment he hesitated. Up 
to that time I had not known him; but I was known 
in St. Louis as an uncompromising Union man; so, 
in his hesitation as to what he should do, he called at 
my house, told me his whole fascinating history, and 
asked my advice as to whether, in view of the threats 
of his old friends, he should put his painting of the slave 
auction in the show-window. I counselled him not 
to be turned aside by threats from doing any right 
thing, and insisted that in his case his conscience was 
involved; that he was bound in some way to bear wit- 



Decision and Division 157 

ness to his conviction concerning slavery, and that he 
should do it by his brush as well as by his lips. I told 
him, come what would, he ought to display his painting; 
that while it would cost him much so to do, there cer- 
tainly would be compensations for his sacrijEice; that, 
in my judgment, where he would lose one friend he 
would gain three; and that those whom he would gain 
would be better than those whom he would lose. At 
the close of our conversation he determined to act m 
accordance with his own judgment and conscience, 
even if he lost all his old friends and gained none. 

The next day his " Slave Mart " ^ was in the show- 
window. Before it all day long stood a crowd, ever 
going, ever coming. Thousands viewed with admira- 
tion the work of the artist. There was a soul, a life in 
the picture, that appealed to every onlooker. Some 
subtle power in it laid hold of the imagination and 
touched the heart. The artist became more widely 
known. He entered on a new career. Friends such 
as he never had before sprung up on every hand. 
He afterwards painted John Brown going out, with 
pinioned arms, to execution, and stooping to kiss a 
negro baby. This historical painting was afterwards 
engraved, and the engraving was extensively sold. 

We have written enough to show how much it cost 
one in St. Louis, during the war, to decide firmly with 
which party in the national conflict he would cast his 
lot. Such decisions in a multitude of cases were divisive ; 
they often set in bitter antagonism husbands and wives, 
parents and children; in not a few instances destroyed 
old friendships and blotted out for a time the ordinary 
amenities of life, and even split asunder Christian 

* This painting was purchased by Wm. B. Howard of Chicago, and 
was burned, not in the great fire, with all of Mr. Howard's Collection, 



158 A Border City in the Civil War 

churches, the very body of Christ; and the cleavage 
was so deep and radical that it remains to this day; 
some churches still being designated either " North " 
or "South." 

The whole thing was amazing when it was enacted, 
the recollection of it now is weirdly strange. But we 
should never forget that those who uncomplainingly 
sacrificed for their country the tenderest relations of 
life were as heroically patriotic as those brave men 
who fell pierced with Minie balls on the "high places " 
of bloody battlefields. 



CHAPTER X 

BITTERNESS 

I SHOULD be glad to omit all reference to the bitterness 
of feeling that pervaded the minds of many in St. Louis 
during the period of the war, if, without mentioning it, 
I could faithfully present what was there enacted. But 
it was an important factor in the life of that city so long 
as the gigantic and heroic struggle to preserve the Union 
lasted. Happily such intense bitterness as then con- 
fronted us has forever passed away. As a mere reminis- 
cence it is hke a wasp in amber, interesting perchance, 
but harmless. 

We shall best enable the generation bom since the 
war vividly to apprehend the extreme virulence of not 
a few in St. Louis at that time, by calling attention to 
some concrete examples of it. 

Soon after the taking of Camp Jackson, when a multi- 
tude of national banners, large and small, began to be 
displayed, a mother with her little son, who was not 
more than five j^ears old, boarded an Olive Street 
horse-car. Some one had given to the little boy a tiny 
flag. Up to that moment she had not observed it. Wlien 
she caught sight of it, before all in the car she cried, 
in anger, "Where did you get that dirty rag? " Then 
snatching it from the hand of her child, she threw it 
upon the floor as though it were a viper, and stamping 
it beneath her feet, said in a rage, " Let me never see 



160 A Border City in the Civil War 

you touch that vile thing again." Such an exhibition 
of wrath against the Stars and Stripes seems to us 
now astounding, but it was all too common then. 

This extreme bitterness, early in 1861, began to mani- 
fest itself against the Germans of the city, who, as we 
have already noted, with hardly an exception were 
openly and stoutly opposed to secession. Those who 
favored the Southern Confederacy seldom if ever called 
them Germans, but usually denominated them, "the 
Dutch." The intense contempt which, by the tone of 
their voices, they injected into that simple phrase, 
"the Dutch," was marvellous. And this scorn for our 
German fellow citizens was especially manifested by 
the gentler sex. The secession women, belonging to 
the best society of the city, often poured out their 
vituperation on the loyal Germans. At parties and 
receptions, more than once I heard them hotly de- 
nounce the Germans as Amsterdam Dutch without 
the Amster. This was shocking then, it is almost 
unbelievable now. 

But even this pales before the irate utterance of a 
woman, who lived hardly a block from my own door. 
A few weeks after the battle of Wilson's Creek, the 
body of General Lyon, who fell on that well-fought 
field, was being borne through the city on its way for 
burial in his native State of Connecticut. Some one 
said to this woman: "The hearse with the body of 
General Lyon is coming down the street; " to which in 
a flash she responded, "Good! if I had a piece of his 
liver, I'd fry it and eat it." Nobody but a woman could 
have compressed so much gall into so few words. Shake- 
speare, who sounded the depths of woman's soul, and 
understood her power of passion as no other English 
writer ever did, in his "Much Ado about Nothing," 



Bitterness 161 

put into the mouth of " Sweet Beatrice," as she raged 
against Claudio, "0 God, that I were a man! I would 
eat his heart in the market place." What the prince of 
dramatists in imagination attributed to woman, we saw 
m real life in St. Louis, in 1861. 

If now in what we further relate in illustration 
of the bitterness of feeling which for a season was 
manifested in our city, we shall find amid the grave 
and solemn conflicts of civil war much that is ludicrous 
and laughable, we must not forget, that by a merciful 
Providence this tended to hghten burdens that other- 
wise might have been insupportable ; that the grave and 
the gay, the sad and mirth-provoking, the sublime and 
the ridiculous often keep very close company, and that 
we are responsible neither for the facts, nor for the 
strange juxtapositions in which at times they presented 
themselves. 

Into the two words, abolitionist and Yankee, a 
genuine Southerner and secessionist, by his intonation 
and emphasis, condensed an amazing amount of bitter- 
ness. To hurl either epithet at some despised Northerner 
was the climax of vituperation. Nothing could be, 
nothing needed to be, added. And such objurgation, 
harmless to the recipient, was often freely indulged in, 
in our city. 

I sat one morning in the study of Rev. G. J. Johnson, 
D. D., pastor of a Baptist church on Sixth Street, 
when a Kentuckian came in to see us. In a moment 
we saw that he was an ardent, impulsive soul. Without 
a break, for some time he talked right on about the 
war and those who were conducting the government. 
With rare volubility he denounced the Yankees; but 
soon checked himself for a moment and asked if we were 
Yankees? We assured him that we were not; so he 



162 A Border City in the Civil War 

went on with his bitter tirade against the hated and 
despised Yankees. At last he stopped, apparently 
to take breath, and asked, " Where were you born? " 
We replied that we were both born and brought up in 
western New York, " Western New York!" he ex- 
citedly exclaimed, " Western New Yorkers are the 
meanest kind of Yankees! " We greeted his discourte- 
ous declaration with a peal of laughter. At which he 
blushed, and, partially infected by our merriment, 
with a smile, but without an apology, bade us good day. 
In my church and congregation were two bright, 
attractive Southern women. In sentiment however 
they were politically divided; one was for secession, 
the other was for the Union. In January, 1861, the 
latter, in some way, discovered that she was a distant 
relative of Mr. Lincoln. Thereupon she visited Spring- 
field, and called upon him. He heartily urged her to 
spend several days under his roof. She was delighted 
to accept this cordial invitation, and was charmed with 
her new-found blood relation. She returned to St. 
Louis full of enthusiasm for the President elect, and 
embraced every fitting opportunity to lavish upon him 
her praises. By chance she and the other woman of 
opposite political sentiment, of whom I have spoken 
above, making a social call, met, without any collusion, 
in my parlor. The conversation soon drifted into a 
discussion of the ominous events which were then 
agitating all minds. Very soon Mr. Lincoln was spoken 
of and the lady who favored secession called him a 
clown and a mountebank. This brought her Southern 
friend, who was a Unionist, to his defence. Her words 
had in them no tinge of bitterness, but they were positive 
and cordial. She said that Mr. Lincoln was a relative of 
hers, a warm personal friend, that she had recently 



Bitterness 163 

spent, by his urgent invitation, ten days in his house, 
and that he was no clown; if she had ever met a kind, 
warm-hearted gentleman he was one. To hear Mr. 
Lincoln so warmly eulogized as a gentleman, and that 
by a Southern woman, was a little more than the seces- 
sion lady could endure. She burst into tears, and 
said in broken accents,"! — can — never speak — 
to you again." She rose to depart. Confounded by this 
unexpected explosion of spleen, and hardly knowing 
whether I was at home or somewhere else, I managed 
to help my tearful friend to the door, where, as politely 
as I could, I bade her good day. She did not respond. 
Her choking emotions forbade it. With her handker- 
chief to her eyes, she went sobbing down the street, 
because one of her own dear friends had, in the most 
lady-like manner, declared that Mr. Lincoln was not a 
clown. 

But the unseemly virulence of some prompted them 
to deeds of violence. In the autumn of 1861, a young 
Southern fire-eater appeared one morning on Fourth 
Street before the Planters' Hotel, with a loaded revolver. 
He flourished it around and above his head, boasting 
that as soon as he should get a sight of Frank Blair, 
he would shoot him. A gentleman who heard his 
braggadocio felt keenly solicitous for Mr. Blair's safety. 
Just then he caught sight of him on Fourth Street, 
about a square and a half north of the hotel. Hastening 
to him, he reported what the hot Southerner had just 
said, and pointed out to him his would-be murderer. 
Mr. Blair was a tall, well-proportioned, vigorous man. 
He was among the bravest of the brave. He never 
feared the face of clay. That chilly morning he wore an 
overcoat with a cape. He at once threw the cape across 
his breast and over his shoulder, and, to the consterna- 



164 A Border City in the Civil War 

tion of the friend, who had warned him of his imminent 
danger, walked directly to the hotel, before which, 
with loaded revolver in hand, stood the swaggerer, who, 
a few minutes before, had so loudly threatened to take 
his life. Mr, Blair went past him, came within six feet 
of him, looked him in the eye, but the poltroon did not 
shoot. He found it easier to boast than to act. The 
piercing glance of his enemy cooled his heated passion 
and made him a shivering coward. When Mr. Blair 
reached the street south of the hotel, he turned on his 
heel and walked back, and once more brushing by his 
cowed foe went on his way unhurt. 

But even in the fair sex, bitterness sometimes mani- 
fested itself with bloody intent. A lady who lived only 
a few rods from my door told me one day that she 
intended to shoot Frank Blair. Mr. Blair was in- 
tensely hated by Southerners for his pronounced free- 
soil views, and on account of the leading part he was 
taking in saving Missouri from the madness of secession. 
The more malignant disunionists determined if possible 
to put him out of the way. It was more than once whis- 
pered that in due time he would be assassinated. And 
here was a lady that was aspiring for the honor of 
shedding his blood. Just why she so frankly declared her 
intention to me, I could never understand. However, 
we were well acquainted with each other, and she, 
knowing how warmly I contended for the Union, 
evidently meant to annoy me by declaring her fell 
purpose. Nevertheless, I made light of it, and said to 
her, "I don't think Mr. Blair will suffer much from 
you." "Ah! " she replied, "I have a revolver, and I 
am practising with it every day in the back yard and 
have already become a good shot.'* "Still," I said, 
" I don't think you will seriously injure him." She 



Bitterness 165 

responded, "You will see pretty soon." And sure 
enough her opportunity for doing that meditated deed 
of blood soon came. 

We have already noted the fact that when Lyon took 
Camp Jackson, he divided his force and sent different 
detachments of it along different routes, all converging 
on the encampment in Lindell's Grove. A regiment 
of artillery went through Chestnut Street, on which 
this lady of bloody intent lived. Mr. Blair rode on 
horseback at the head of it. The street was not very 
wide. He sat majestically on his horse. He was a 
splendid target, enticing to any one who longed to shoot 
him. The house in which our lady lived had at the 
second story an iron balcony on which French win- 
dows opened. Some one said to her, "Frank Blair is 
coming." She seized her loaded revolver. She panted 
to become famous, and saw not that at the same time, 
if she carried out her purpose, she would become infamous. 
She grasped and turned the knob of the window; it 
swung back on its hinges into the room; she put one 
foot out upon the balcony ; Blair was now nearly abreast 
of her, and only a few feet from her; just behind him 
was a battery of artillery; this was the first time that 
she had seen the brazen throats of cannon. Did she fire 
at that living target on horseback? She utterly failed 
to act the assassin; the sight of those six and eight 
pounders sent the blood from her head to her heart; 
things went swirling around her; she faintly whispered 
"Oh! Oh! " and fell back into the room in a dead faint. 
Blair rode on all unconscious of his feminine foe, while 
the members of her family, with cold water and harts- 
horn, anxiously labored to restore her to consciousness. 
She at last opened her eyes, a sadder but wiser woman. 
During the years of the war that followed, her neighbors, 



166 A Border City in the Civil War 

when they greeted her, often asked, " And how is Frank 
Blair? " Just how we then made merry over intended 
murder, it is now difficult to explain. The lady of whom 
I write would have been shocked to have heard it so 
characterized. She simply meditated the deed of a 
patriotic heroine. But after her vaunted violence ended 
in a faint she seemed to lose all interest in the war. The 
sight of a few brass field pieces drove out of her forever 
all bitterness of spirit. 

Belonging to the Presbyterian Church at the comer 
of Eighth and Locust Streets was a good deacon by the 
name of Tucker. He was editor of an evening paper. 
Believing with all his heart in the righteousness of 
secession, and wishing both in season and out of season, 
to strike telling blows against all advocates of Unionism, 
he came out in an editorial, one Saturday evening, in 
which he said: "The devil preaches at the corner of 
Sixth and Locust Streets, and he is just the same sort 
of a being that he was more than eighteen hundred 
years ago; he wants everybody to bow down and wor- 
ship him." Now since that was just where I preached, 
the editorial was rather personal, and was intended to 
be offensive. The deacon, fearing that I might miss 
reading his highly complimentary words, and so lack 
the stimulus that they might impart to my Sunday 
ministrations, early on the morning of the Lord's day, 
sent a copy of his paper to me by special messenger, 
having thoughtfully marked his amiable editorial with 
his blue pencil. Instead of demanding satisfaction of 
the pious editor as almost any hot-blooded Southerner 
of that day would have done, the blue-penciled editorial 
was read at my breakfast-table amid roars of laughter. 

The good deacon a little while after left St. Louis, 
became a member of Claybourn F. Jackson's political 



Bitterness 167 

family, fled with the Governor and his staff to Arkansas 
and printed the proclamations of the discarded, peri- 
patetic government of Missouri, as it wandered here and 
there in exile. About two years thereafter he died and, 
by the special permit of the general in command of the 
department of Missouri, was buried from the church 
where for many years he had filled the office of deacon. 
He was an honest, earnest soul, striving according to 
his hght to do his duty. 

Moreover, it fell to my lot not only to be at times 
the subject of objurgation in secession newspapers, 
but the enemies of the Union also honored me by threat- 
ening to take my life. On a June morning of 1861, a 
gentleman accosted me at the Post-office, whither I 
had gone for my morning mail, and with pardonable 
inquisitiveness and much earnestness asked if I went out 
nights. I assured him that I did. He then urgently 
advised me not to do so, saying that he knew that a 
plot had been laid to kill me. I answered that I had 
very important duties as a Christian pastor, and when 
in order to perform them it was necessary for me to go 
out in the evening, I must go regardless of consequences 
to myself. Although a stranger to me, he declared him- 
self to be a friend, and that he said what he did out of 
personal solicitude for me. He wished to know if I were 
not afraid. I assured him that I had not the slightest 
consciousness of fear; and that come life or death I 
proposed to stand at my post and do my duty. He went 
his way and I went mine. Soon it occurred to me that 
I did not ask his name, and who my solicitous friend 
was I never learned. 

Very soon thereafter a neighboring pastor called upon 
me, and with evident anxiety which expressed itself 
both in his words and in the tone of his voice, detailed 



168 A Border City in the Civil War 

what he had heard about the planned assassination of 
myself. He thought that I was in imminent danger 
and that perhaps it might be best for me to leave the 
State. I replied that I suspected that some of these 
gruesome stories had been invented to frighten me from 
my post; and, if that was the design, the authors of 
them had missed their mark. As for myself I had no 
apprehension of any special danger, and I had settled 
the question as to what course I should take; it was my 
unalterable purpose to go right on in the discharge of 
my duties as a minister of the gospel and as a citizen 
of Missouri and of the United States, if the heavens fell. 
What the foundation of these murderous rumors was 
I never attempted to discover. Society in the city was 
wrenched from its moorings, and was tempest-tossed. 
That some cherished wild and bloody purposes was only 
too evident. Now and then a citizen, under the darkness 
of night, was done to death in the street, and they who 
did the deed of blood were never discovered. Men's 
minds were filled with apprehension. Their imagina- 
tions were weirdly active. No human mind fully under- 
stood the situation; none but the divine mind could 
fathom and comprehend it. No man could see the dangers 
that stealthily lurked by his pathway; then as ever there 
was only one safe thing for any true man to do, trust in 
God and fearlessly do his duty as he saw it day by day. 

In November of 1861, General Halleck took forcible 
possession of the main rendezvous of the secessionists 
of the city and seized the arms, furniture, books and 
papers that were found there. One book among others 
stirred up no little excitement. In it were several pages 
of names of our citizens. One column of names was 
written in red ink, the rest in black. Upon investiga- 
tion it was ascertained that it was the declared purpose 



Bitterness 16ft 

of the disloyal, who made the place their headquarters, 
when the city should be taken by the Confederates, 
to seize those whose names were written in red and, 
without trial, hang them from the nearest lamp-post 
or telegraph-pole; while those whose names were writ- 
ten in black were to be thrown into prison and tried 
by court martial. At the head of the red list stood the 
flaming name of Frank P. Blair, Beneath his many of 
us were permitted to read our names upon that blood-red 
roll of honor. 

The instances of malignity now noted by us are but 
a few among many. Still such bitterness was far from 
being universal. There seemed to be comparatively little 
of it among the loyal. They were resolute, but not often 
virulent. They were animated by confident hope. 
Few of them, after Camp Jackson was taken, ever 
believed that Missouri would secede. They however 
saw the need of constant vigilance. They coped with 
an able foe; but feeling that their star was in the as- 
cendant, they gave themselves largely to works of 
charity, generously meeting the wants of both friends 
and foes. On the other hand, the cause of the disloyal 
was clearly on the wane. The fact was so evident that 
they were often in a state of desperation. In such trying 
circumstances some of them gave way to blind passion. 
Their better natures were overborne and some of them ex- 
pressed their pent-up bitterness in hot, hasty words, or 
in despicable deeds; still a large majority of them, in 
all the stress of the hour, cherished and manifested 
a kindly spirit. But it has been necessary for us, in 
order faithfully to depict society as it was in St. Louis 
during the war, to present some of the many sad and 
startling exhibitions of bitterness. 



CHAPTER XI 

SLAVES AND SLAVE - PENS 

When the Civil War broke out, as we have before said, 
there were only about fifteen hundred slaves in St. 
Louis. Among these the females, specially demanded 
for domestic service, far outnumbered the males. 
While the system of slavery was essentially barbarous 
and cruel, most of these bondmen were kindly treated. 
Occasionally, however, some brutal master gave vent 
to his passion and punished his slaves with unreasonable 
and unbridled severity. A man of my acquaintance, 
who had among his household servants a small colored 
girl, not more than fifteen years old, for trivial offences, 
used to take her into the bath-room, remove all her 
clothing, and then hold her for many minutes at a time 
under the streaming cold water of the shower bath. 
Her cries, while undergoing this torture, could be heard 
in the street and in the houses of his neighbors. And 
while humane slaveholders denounced the savagery, 
such was the law, and such was public sentiment, that 
nobody ventured to take the part of the poor slave girl, 
while her owner and tormentor gloried in his cruelty, 
evidently regarding the punishment as original and a 
mark of his genius. 

But, on the other hand, there were some masters who 
were conspicuous for their kindness to their slaves. 
One of the deacons of my church was a slaveholder. 



Slaves and Slave-pens 171 

He was a Virginian by birth. His slaves came to 
him by inheritance. He was a tall man with sandy 
hair and a mild blue eye. In him, linked with ster- 
ling ability, were rare modesty and unusual benev- 
olence. Giving seemed to be a luxury to him. He 
contributed to every good cause to the extent of his 
ability and often beyond what could have been reason- 
ably required of him. The suggestion of a smile 
was always upon his lips. No one that observed it 
could ever forget it. It was a part of the man; the 
outward expression of the sunshine of his soul. And 
yet this noble, tender-hearted man held his fellow men 
in bondage. 

About two months after I became his pastor, in 
response to his cordial invitation, one evening I dined 
with him. After the cheerful meal was over, he took 
me aside into a private room, and to my astonishment 
and delight said: " If you ever wish to say anything 
in the pulpit against slavery you need not hesitate 
on my account ; there are two things that I abominate : 
one is selling liquor, and the other is selling niggers." 
Yes, he said "niggers; " they all did. He then told me 
that he had inherited his slaves, and felt under solemn 
obligation to care for them. He also declared that they 
were all manumitted, and that their manumission 
papers were in a certain drawer in a bureau, which he 
pointed out to me ; so, if he should die, they would all 
be free. But he said, "I do not wish them to know 
this. They are lAl young and I am trying to train them, 
so that when they know that they are free and must 
shift for themselves, they will be able to earn their own 
living. They are well cared for; for the present I am 
the nigger of this household." So he was. Marshal 
Brotherton served everybody, even his own slaves. 



172 A Border City in the Civil War 

The sexton of my church was a colored man. Every- 
body called him George. One day he said to me, " I 
am the slave of Marse Brotherton. If he should die, I'se 
afraid I'll be sold down souf. Won't you speak to him 
about it, and axe him to make me free? " I told him 
that I would, and I soon found my opportunity to do 
so. My good deacon then told me the story of George. 
A few years before George belonged to a man who lived 
in the county of St. Louis, outside the city. His master 
died. When settling up his estate the executors put 
George in the county jail for safe-keeping, intending 
to sell him to New Orleans slave-traders. Mr. Brotherton 
was at that time sherifT of the county. Visiting the jail 
one day, George entreated him to buy him and keep 
him from being carried down to the New Orleans slave 
market, which all slaves instinctively dreaded. Mr. 
Brotherton did not need a servant, but his heart was 
so touched with pity for him that he bought him. 
He at once opened an account of which the slave knew 
nothing, charging George a fair price for keeping, and 
crediting him with his earnings. In a little while the 
slave had paid for himself. His manumission papers 
were then made out. All this was concealed from 
George. He was a freeman, but did not know it. Mr. 
Brotherton had set him up in the wood and coal business, 
was teaching him how to buy and sell and keep his 
account books, so that he could intelligently care for 
himself. Having heard this interesting and touching 
story of my sexton and Christian brother, — for George 
was a true believer in Christ and an exemplary member 
of the church, — I asked Mr. Brotherton if in his judg- 
ment it would be well for me to tell him that he was a 
freeman in order to relieve him of anxiety. For a 
moment that bewitching smile played upon his lips, and 



Slaves and Slave-pens 173 

then he said, " Yes, you may tell him if you want 
to." 

The next day I met George at the church. It was a 
great joy to me to tell a man who thought that he was 
a slave that instead he was a freeman. And my poor 
pen cannot depict either his happiness or mine, as I told 
him that simple story of his master's kindness and 
benevolence of which he had been the unconscious 
recipient. He listened at first amazed ; then joy beamed 
from those large, tear-filled, black eyes. He seemed at 
once to be transformed. In broken utterances he 
expressed his gratitude to his master and to me. There 
was no happier soul on earth than he just then. He had 
come to his duties that day supposing that he was a 
slave; he did those duties with the new-born sense that 
he was free. No two states of mind could be in sharper 
contrast. To him old things in a moment passed away, 
and all things became new. 

How can the acts of this Virginia slaveholder be ex= 
plained? Why did he deal kindly with his slaves? 
What led him to make such great pecuniary sacrifices 
in manumitting them? The explanation is probably 
in part to be found in the benevolent disposition with 
which God had endowed him; but in addition to this 
he was a genuine Christian. He was vitally united to 
Christ. Christ was in him and he had the Spirit of Christ. 
He was living the life of Christ. He had much of Christ's 
love to his fellow men. He never for a moment doubted 
the manhood of his slaves, and he felt impelled by the 
spirit within him to treat them as his fellow men. He 
was a constant reader of the Bible. He had, I think, 
the best-thumbed New Testament in my entire congre- 
gation, and the truths of the gospel were antagonistic 
to slavery. He evidently very profoundly believed 



174 A Border City in the Civil War 

what the great apostle to the Gentiles wrote : " There is 
neither bond nor free: for we are all one in Christ Jesus." 
A few months after I made my home in St. Louis, 
my good deacon wished me to go with him a few miles 
out of the city and call upon Captain Harper, one of his 
close friends. He did not tell me the real reason why 
he wished me to make the captain a visit, but thereby 
hangs an interesting tale. On a beautiful autumn day, 
we drove out to the farmhouse of his friend. We were 
welcomed with genuine Southern hospitality. After 
a few moments conversation under the shade-trees in 
front of the house, Mr. Brotherton said, " I think that 
you would enjoy a walk over the farm with Captain 
Harper. ' ' To this I eagerly assented . The farm appeared 
to be in perfect order; the fences were well built, the 
fields were thoroughly tilled, and the maturing crops 
were abundant. It was the best kept farm that it had 
been my lot to see up to that time in my adopted State. 
There were several hundred acres of it. Here and there 
in different directions I saw on the farm neat cottages 
painted white. I asked the captain what they were. 
He told me that they were occupied by German and 
Irish families, the families of the men who worked his 
farm. "A few years ago," he said, "I carried on this 
plantation by slave labor. I had twenty-one slaves. 
But one day as I was walking across this field, where we 
now are, the thought came to me for the first time in 
my life that my slaves had the same right to themselves 
and to the product of their labor, that I had to myself 
and the product of my toil. And this conviction was 
strong and persistent; I could not shake it off. But 
what could I do with my slaves? The laws of the State 
were such that if I should give them their freedom 
they would be worse off than in their bondage. I then 



Slaves and Slave-pens 175 

thought of the Colonization Society and decided to free 
my slaves, and, if I could get their consent, to send 
them to Liberia. I called them all together one day in 
my dooryard, and told them that I had been convinced 
that I had no just right to them or to their labor; but 
I pointed out to them the woful plight of free negroes in 
Missouri, told them of the free State of Liberia, of the 
Colonization Society and of my wish to send them to 
live among their own people in Africa. I told them 
that they were now at liberty to do as they pleased, but 
that I should advise them to learn trades, and if they 
would do so, at the end of three years I would send them 
to Liberia. They all accepted my offer, except Mammy, 
whom you saw at the house. She said that she would 
not go ' nowhere for nobody; ' and she has never left 
my home. Some of my slaves learned the trade of the 
carpenter and joiner, some that of the shoemaker, 
some that of the mason, others that of the cooper, and 
some of them remained here on the farm and I did what 
I could to teach them to be independent farmers. When 
the three years of their apprenticeship had passed, I 
sent them through the Colonization Society to Africa." 
As I listened to this wonderful story, so modestly and 
artlessly told, I felt like taking off my hat to my new 
acquaintance. This was a kind of abolitionist that I 
had never before met. For conscience' sake he freed, 
educated, and deported his slaves to a free state. It 
cost him fully sixty thousand dollars. But he cheerfully 
made the sacrifice that he might satisfy his sense of jus- 
tice. I knew now why my deacon had been so insistent 
that I should with him visit Captain Harper. The 
Captain was a man after his own heart. Both had been 
born and reared in the midst of slavery, and both had 
become emancipators of their own slaves. They were 



176 A Border City in the Civil War 

practical abolitionists, but both would then have 
indignantly repudiated a title so opprobrious at that 
time in their own neighborhood and State. 

Richard Anderson, the colored Baptist pastor to 
whom we have referred in a previous chapter, caring 
for a church, the members of which were fully half 
slaves, had many interesting and suggestive experiences. 
One winter he conducted for a few days a protracted 
meeting. At the close of an earnest and sensible sermon, 
— for he was an excellent preacher, sometimes truly 
eloquent, — he invited those who wished to be Chris- 
tians and desired the prayers of the Church to come 
forward and take the front seat immediately before 
the pulpit. It was called the " mourners' bench." 
Those who occupied it were supposed to be mourning 
over their sins. Six persons, four men and two women, 
in response to his invitation came forward and occupied 
that front seat. As he stood before them he saw at a 
glance that they were all slaves, and his talk to them 
was suited to their condition. He had a quaint humor 
of which he appeared to be quite unconscious. Among 
other things he said, " You are slaves; you belong to 
your masters; you have very little in common with 
other people. But there is one verse in the Bible that 
was written especially for you: ' Ho, every one that 
thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and ye that have no 
money, yea, come.' Now you have no money, but you 
can have as much religion as any one else; you can 
have as much as the President of the United States, and 
a good deal more than I believe he has got." Mr. Bu- 
chanan, who was still in the White House, was very un- 
popular among the colored people, which may account 
for this surprising and mirth-provoking remark on so 
solemn an occasion. 



Slaves and Slave-pens 177 

But this colored pastor had many sad, heart-breaking 
trials. This is one of them. Two members of his con- 
gregation, a widowed mother and her Httle daughter, 
were slaves in the family of a Presbyterian deacon. In 
the autumn of 1860 the mother came to him, sobbing 
and wringing her hands, because her master had deter- 
mined to sell her to a New Orleans slave-trader, and 
to retain in liis own household her little daughter. 
She must take her chances in the dreaded slave market, 
and be sold to whom she knew not, a fate from which 
the slaves of the border States shrank with untold 
horror, and must be torn from her only child, her greatest 
earthly solace. But what could her pastor do? He too 
belonged to the servile race, and in his boyhood had been 
a slave. Too vehement protestation on his part would 
damage the case rather than help it. But he fearlessly 
sought out her master, and pleaded as well as he could 
the case of the distressed mother. Whatever the deacon 
may have felt as he listened to the modest, earnest 
pleading of that great-hearted black pastor, he inflexibly 
held to his resolution to sell his dark-skinned sister in 
Christ ; not that she had been an unfaithful or inefficient 
servant, but because the deacon needed money, and as 
he thought must have it. So he carried out his purpose. 
The day came when, with a hundred or more consigned 
to the same pitiless fate, she boarded the steamer at 
the levee to be carried to her doom. Her little slave 
daughter was there to give her the last tearful kiss 
and embrace. Her faithful pastor stood by filled with 
sorrow and deep down in his soul hot with righteous 
wrath. The steamer moved out from the levee, the 
anguished mother and the pastor waved to each other 
their red bandanas, and slowly the vessel with its freight 
of sorrow disappeared down the river. 



178 A Border City in the Civil War 

Immediately after, I met this pastor with his burden 
of grief, and he told me the sad tale. He said: " Think 
of it! she came to me for comfort. And I did the best I 
could." I said to him, " I don't see what you could 
have said to comfort her." He repHed, " There was not 
much that I could say ; but I did tell her that God was 
down there as well as up here, and in some way he would 
take care of her, and that when she got to heaven, where 
the wicked cease from troubling, she would not find 
that Presbyterian deacon there to torment her." He 
uttered this in dead earnestness, and with a solemn 
gravity befitting the heart-breaking story, seemingly 
without the sUghtest consciousness of the mingled 
humor and sarcasm of his last declaration. 

Belonging to my congregation, though not a member 
of my church, was a banker and slaveholder. He was 
a Mississippian by birth and education, and profoundly 
believed in the righteousness of slavery. Knowing that 
I came from the North, he set out to convince me that 
African slavery was not only right, but beneficent and 
beautiful. But he little suspected how difficult the job 
was that he had undertaken. However, to attain his 
object, he proceeded in a cautious, artful manner. He 
invited me and mine to dinner. It was a very natm-al 
move for a man to make in reference to his pastor. But 
once warmly welcomed under his roof and to his table 
loaded with the best from the market, his unseemly 
ardor in setting forth the attractiveness of the "peculiar 
institution " slightly revealed his ulterior purpose in 
making me a recipient of his bountiful hospitality. 
But the dinner was good, his wife was a charming hostess 
and his young daughters were winsome. Under the cir- 
cumstances it became me to be a good listener, to make 
some commonplace remarks, and to ask questions with 



Slaves and Slave-pens 179 

an air of innocence. This seemed to encourage mine 
host, and he set forth with much particularity and 
with the accent of conviction the manifold benefits of 
slavery as it existed in the United States, I made no 
adverse comment, which incited him to illustrate the 
beauties of human bondage by the condition of the 
slaves in his own household. He was the proud owner 
of two. One of them was a mulatto, over six feet in 
height, and between twenty-five and thirty years of 
age. He was good-looking, and evidently a man of 
energy and decision. My host said, " Did you see 
Wash when you came in? " I assured him that I did, 
and that I was very much impressed by him. '' Well," 
he said, " Wash has been with me for many years; I 
think a great deal of him, and he is warmly attached 
to me and my family. Nothing could persuade him to 
leave me. I have perfect confidence in him. He is also 
a man of good judgment. I never buy a horse or trade 
horses unless I first get Wash's opinion." And so he 
went on extolling his slave, who seemed to me to be a 
manlier man than his master. 

Having exhausted the subject of Wash, he began to 
dilate on Mammy. " Did you notice her? " he said. 
" She waited on the table. She has nursed these daugh- 
ters of ours, and loves them as though they were her 
own children and they love her. Why, sir, she is so 
attached to her home and to us all that nothing could 
tempt her to leave us." Well, to hear mine host talk, 
if one had never known anything about slavery except 
what he set forth, it could not but have been con- 
sidered in some respects a beneficent institution. 

He at last asked his wife to play the piano, while the 
young daughters danced. I noticed Mammy in an 
adjoining room, looking in upon the happy scene and 



180 A Border City in the Civil War 

in her delight showing her ivory. About ten o'clock, 
with many warm wishes each for the prosperity of the 
other, we parted, I to think of the beneficence and 
beauty of slavery, and my host probably to contem- 
plate his success in commending to my good graces an 
institution that I had been educated to abhor. 

But what was the sequel of that evening's conversa- 
tion? What light did the immediate future throw back 
upon it? Was my genial host's emphatic and repeated 
declaration that nothing could entice Wash and Manmiy 
from their home verified? The war came on apace. 
Everything appeared to be out of joint. The most stable 
relations of life were unexpectedly and strangely upset. 
Property in slaves grew precarious. And the first slave 
in St. Louis reported in the papers as having run away 
was W^ash. 

His master was an officer of a bank. The young men 
employed there, to whom he had declared as he did to 
me that nothing could induce Wash to leave him, 
asked him if he intended to catch his runaway slave 
and bring him back. He replied, "No, let him go, I 
never liked to have him around anyway; I am glad 
that he has gone." While this quite flatly contradicted 
his previous utterances, under the circumstances it 
was wisest not to attempt to apprehend his fleeing 
chattel. But for many weeks, almost every day, some 
one in the bank would exasperatingly ask him, "How 
is Wash? " But did Mammy, so full of affection and so 
delighted with her home, prove true to her master and 
mistress? About two weeks after Wash's departure, she 
left without giving notice to the family. She slept in 
the second story of the house. In the night she made 
up a budget for herself, and threw it out into the yard. 
She then made a rope of her bed-clothes, fastened one 



Slaves and Slave-pens 181 

end of it to her bedstead, and threw the other out of 
the window. Her improvised rope reached nearly 
to the ground. She climbed down the rope, took up 
her budget and departed. That household never saw 
that devoted mammy again. Such incidents are repre- 
sentative of hundreds of others at that time. To be 
sure many of the slaves were true to their masters and 
remained with their families to the close of the war; but 
those who wished to leave did so, and the fugitive slave 
law, having suddenly become a dead letter, could no 
longer be invoked to catch them. 

And the slaves had a pretty clear idea of the meaning 
of the war. They knew that their own bondage was the 
real bone of contention. They believed that their 
chains were to be broken and that they would soon 
be free. Very early in the war the slaves saw the 
drift of events. As they met each other they gave 
joyful expression to their expectation of freedom, 
believing it to be near at hand. The morning after 
Camp Jackson was taken, all the equipage of the camp 
was carried in army wagons down the street near my 
door. Out of curiosity a promiscuous crowd had gath- 
ered at the corner of the street to see the sight. Two 
female slaves belonging to a family near by stood there 
grinning with delight. A young woman, a pronounced 
secessionist, from one of the Gulf States, said, with an 
air of triumph, stretching out her arm and excitedly 
shaking her hand, " We'll whip you yet." In response, 
quick as a flash, the two slave girls, pointing to the 
loaded wagons, gleefully cried out, " They've got all 
your tents." I knew those slaves, but had not known 
that they had any interest in the war. However, it 
was now clear that they understood its real meaning 
and took sides with the Unionists. 



182 A Border City in the Civil War 

But slave-pens were a necessary adjunct of slavery. 
Even though, by barbarous laws, men, women and 
children were made chattels, they still continued to feel, 
think and will. And since many of them abhorred their 
condition, it was necessary to pen them up so that 
they might be securely kept and safely handled. With- 
out thick stone walls, windows barred with iron, strong 
doors locked and bolted, such property while being 
bought and sold might vanish. 

When in my pulpit, facing my congregation, I also 
faced, only half a square away, a hideous slave-pen. 
It was kept by Mr. Lynch, an ominous name. I some- 
times saw men and women, handcuffed and chained to- 
gether, in a long two-by-two column, driven in there 
under the crack of the driver's whip, as though they 
were so many colts or calves. Had they committed 
any crime? Oh, no, they had been bought, in different 
parts of the State, by speculators, as one would buy 
up beef-cattle, and were kept in the pen to be sold to the 
good people of St. Louis and of the surrounding towns 
and country districts; and those not thus disposed of 
were bought by slave-dealers for the New Orleans 
market. 

In 1859, some preachers from the eastern States, 
who had been at New Orleans, attending the annual 
meeting of the Young Men's Christian Association of 
the United States, on their return to their homes, 
stopped for three or four days in our city. They painted 
in glowing terms the lavish and delicate hospitality 
that they had received in the commercial capital of 
Louisiana. Appreciating the truth of all they said, I 
nevertheless asked them if they visited the famous 
slave-market of that city. They said that they did not. 
I affirmed that they had missed a great opportunity 



Slaves and Slave-pens 183 

of seeing the other side of the picture; that when 
they had seen and experienced the Christian hospitahty 
of that old Spanish and French city, they ought also to 
have viewed in contrast a slave auction there — as 
heartless and cruel a scene as the wide earth afforded. 
Regretting that they had so superficially done New 
Orleans, they said, " Have you any slave-markets 
here? " I replied, " We have some slave-pens, but 
they are as paradise to perdition to the slave-market 
down there. Nevertheless, to-morrow I will show 
you the sights, slave-pens included." 

In the morning, three or four of the residents of the 
city joined us, so that we had a party of nine. We 
first visited the Mercantile Library with its treasures 
of art. "Now," I said, "since we are always impressed 
by contrasts, let us go from tasteful rooms, books 
and art to Lynch's slave-pen." All were agreed, and we 
were soon on our way. I had some slight acquaintance 
with Mr. Lynch, having often spoken to him as he sat 
out on the sidewalk in warm weather before his pen. 
He was sitting there when we arrived. "Good morning, 
Mr. Lynch," I said, "these gentlemen wish to go into 
your slave-pen." " Certainly," he said, "gentlemen, 
I am glad to see you." He evidently thought that we 
had come to trade with him. As we entered the room 
immediately in front of the pen, one of the party, a tall 
ungainly-looking lawyer, full of humor and fun, said, 
"Mr. Lynch, look out for these fellows, they are a pack 
of abolitionists." Lynch received the declaration 
simply as a chaffing joke and laughed heartily. It was, 
however, sober truth. He put his great iron key into 
the lock, turned back the bolt, swung open the door, 
and turning his face towards us, said, "Gentlemen, I 
have not much stock on hand to-day." Every man in 



184 A Border City in the Civil Wai- 

our company was shocked beyond expression by that 
brutal announcement. We filed solemnly in. He shut 
the door and left us alone and undisturbed to examine 
his "stock." The room was in shape a parallelogram. 
It was plastered and had one small window high up 
near the ceiling. There was no floor but the bare 
earth. Three backless, wooden benches stood next to 
the walls. There were seven slaves there, both men 
and women, herded together, without any arrangement 
for privacy. Some of the slaves were trying to while 
away their time by playing at marbles. One fairly 
good-looking woman about forty years old, tearfully 
entreated us to buy her, promising over and over again 
to be faithful and good. In that sad entreaty one 
could detect the harrowing fear of being sold down 
South. Her plaint was more than a good pastor from 
Troy, N. Y., could endure. Coming up close to my side 
he said, "For God's sake, Anderson, let us get out of 
here!" I rapped on the door; Mr. Lynch opened it; 
we thanked him for his kindness, bade him good day, 
and marched silently down the street. There was now 
no joking, no merriment. We turned the corner into 
another street. We were hidden from Lynch's gaze. 
My friend from Troy stopped; in indignation he stamped 
his foot; he was in agony of spirit; he planted his heel 
on the brick sidewalk and, turning the toe of his foot 
hither and thither again and again, he ground the brick 
under his heel. It was an instinctive bodily movement, 
an irrepressible outward expression of his intense desire 
to grind slavery to powder. At last he exclaimed, 
" Thank God, I never had anything to do with that." 
"Don't be too sure about that," I replied, "how have 
you voted? Now," I added, " let us go to a slave-pen 
at the corner of Fifth and Myrtle Streets, where they 



Slaves and Slave-pens 185 

keep little colored boys and girls for sale." "No," 
he vehemently replied, "I will not go a step, I have 
seen enough. You could not hire me to go there with 
all the gold in California." 

This pen where slave children were kept was much 
larger than Lynch's. The traffic in children seemed to 
be specially brisk and profitable. The inmates of this 
grim prison-house were from about five to sixteen years 
old. Both sexes were there. When the slave-trader 
bought a mother and her children, she was sometimes 
for a season shut up with her brood in that hated place. 
Every few weeks there was an auction of these black 
children, with all of its repulsive, heart-breaking scenes. 
On one such occasion the auctioneer commended to a 
crowd a beautiful mulatto girl, about sixteen years old, 
as having the blood of a United States senator running 
in her veins. Some in that gaping throng listened with 
delight; but a gentleman from the East, a mild-man- 
nered man, unexpectedly flamed out with indignation, 
and denounced the auctioneer and the whole vile slave- 
trade. For this drastic, burning denunciation he was 
threatened with violence. But this man of gentle spirit 
and manners, when aroused, proved to be a veritable 
"son of thunder," and he defied his assailants. 
" When," he said, " this shameless injustice is not only 
periodically enacted in our city, but our whole State is 
plunged into ignominy by offering for sale a daughter 
of a United States senator, I cannot and will not hold 
my peace. Do what you please. I denounce the out- 
rage." Those that threatened him were cowed into 
silence; the disturbance was only a momentary ripple; 
the auctioneer went on with his nefarious task ; the girl 
with senatorial blood was knocked down to the highest 
bidder. And then another, and another, and another, 



186 A Border City in the Civil War 

boy or girl, was sold under the hammer till the fall of 
the curtain of darkness put temporary end to the 
shameless work. 

A man connected with this pen defended the breaking 
up of families by the sale of slaves. He said that black 
mothers and children did not much mind being separated ; 
that they had little, if any, real affection for each other; 
it was very much like separating a cow and her calf. 
A httle while after, at that very slave-pen, I saw the 
disproof of his words. A man had just bought there, 
at private sale, a little boy about ten years old. The 
lad's mother was with him. As he was taken away 
from the pen, he began in his grief to howl as though 
his heart was breaking. After he had been taken about 
two squares, his purchaser, annoyed by the wailing, 
returned with him to the pen, secured the loan of his 
mother till he could get his tearful chattel to his home, 
without attracting a curious and sympathetic crowd 
on the street. Once there his little slave could be 
quieted by a sugar plum or a whip. When the lad was at 
last under the roof of his new master, the bereft and 
sobbing mother was led back to the desolate pen to be 
sold to some other master in the city or State, or to some 
trader who would take her down to the rice or cotton 
plantations of the South. 

But when the war came on, there was no longer 
any demand for slaves. The traffic in human beings 
suddenly ceased. Lynch shut up his pen. The military 
authorities seized the pen at the corner of Fifth and 
Myrtle Streets and transformed it into a military prison. 
No little colored boy or girl was ever again to be sold 
there. The place hallowed by the sighs and tears of 
bondmen and of motherless children was for a time 
to become the prison-house of those who had bought and 



Slaves and Slave-pens 187 

sold their fellow men, and were now waging unholy war 
against the very government that had protected them 
and their slaves, — the government that had com- 
placently caught and returned to them their chattels 
who had attempted by flight to cast off their bondage 
and secure freedom for themselves and their children 
amid the frosts and snows of Canada. 

One morning in 1862, an old negro, who for many 
years had been a drayman for a mercantile firm on 
Second Street, was full of merriment. He was overheard 
mumbling something to himself and every now and then 
breaking out into a laugh. His employer said, "Joe, 
what is it? What's the matter? " He responded with 
a chuckle, "Strange tings happen cles days! " " So, 
what things? " " You kno's dat slave-pen, corner Fifth 
an Myrtle? " "Yes." "Well, de col'ed folks used to 
carry in tings dar fo der chillen to eat. Dis mawnin, 
boss, I seed white folks carrying in tings for der folks 
to eat. Ha! ha! strange tings happen des days." 
Sure enough, the tables were turned. Wrongs were being 
righted. Justice, poetical justice, was being meted out. 
" With what measure ye mete it shaU be measured to 
you again," saith the Lord. 

" Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceed- 
ing small, 

Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds 
he all." 



CHAPTER XII 

PRISONS AND PRISONERS 

It is not my purpose to give a complete history of the 
military prisons in St. Louis during the war. There were 
several of them. They were for the most part improvised 
to meet the exigencies of the hour. The military authori- 
ties seized certain buildings belonging to the disloyal, 
which, by a little alteration, were easily and quickly made 
suitable for the reception of political prisoners. Among 
these buildings was the slave-pen, mentioned in the pre- 
ceding chapter, at the corner of Fifth and Myrtle Streets. 
Another was the McDowell Medical College on Gratiot 
Street. 

Dr. McDowell, who founded this college, and had 
conducted it successfully for many years, was one of 
the staunchest of pro-slavery men, and a pronounced 
and bitter secessionist. He was tall and imposing in 
appearance. His long, white locks, thrust back of his 
ears, hung down over his coat collar. His eyes gleamed 
from beneath shaggy, gray eyebrows. Any stranger 
would have noted him in a crowd as an unusual charac- 
ter. Although he was old, his step had the elasticity 
of youth. He was an antagonist that few men cared to 
encounter. For years he had been active in politics. 
On the stump he at times denounced those of opposite 
views in terms of unmeasured severity. On one occasion, 
having some apprehension that his opprobrious epi- 




KB 

eft. 



Prisons and Prisoners " 189 

thets might provoke violent opposition, just as he 
began his speech, as a warning to all antagonists, he 
drew his revolver and ostentatiously laid it down on 
the desk before him and then proceeded with his fiery 
harangue. At the beginning of the war he left our city 
for the more congenial society of the Southern Con- 
federacy, and the military authorities confiscated 
his college building and made it serve the cause that its 
owner hated and denounced. 

The military prisons of St. Louis were sanitary and 
well kept. No one within them was permitted unneces- 
sarily to suffer. All had enough wholesome food. The 
fare of the prisoners was as good as that of the soldiers 
who guarded them. In winter, so far as it was possible, 
they were kept warm and comfortably clad. Most of 
them were incarcerated, not for ordinary criminal acts, 
but because taken in arms against the United States, or 
detected in aiding those who were intent on breaking 
up the Union. Not a few of them had been accustomed 
to the luxuries of life, and could not but contrast their 
prison with the homes from which they had come. 
Still, while they inevitably suffered more or less, taking 
everything into consideration, the government treated 
them with great leniency. Their friends were often 
permitted not only to minister to their necessities, but 
also to eke out their prison fare with the delicacies of 
the season. 

But a few incidents, which came under my observa- 
tion, and in some of which I was an active participant, 
will more clearly reveal what transpired in those military 
prisons than any general statements that I could make, 
however full and just they might be. Early in the war 
I received a note from an officer at the Arsenal, stating 
that the son of an honored Baptist minister of IlHnois 



190 A Border City in the Civil War 

was a prisoner in the Guard-house and wished me to 
visit him. I at once went to see the young man in his 
prison-house. I found him in a wretched phght. The 
Guard-house was far from being a model of neatness. 
The young man's clothing was begrimed and repulsive, 
his face and hands unwashed, his hair unkempt, and to 
his foot was riveted a chain to which was attached a 
heavy iron ball. He was cowed in spirit, and had nearly 
lost heart and hope. He timidly told me his story. 
He was a boy scarcely out of his teens. He had patriot- 
ically enlisted in the Union army, but having had a very- 
imperfect notion of the rigorous discipline to which 
every soldier must necessarily be subjected, he had 
grown weary of his task and more than once had tried 
to desert, not fully realizing how heinous his offence 
was. I saw at a glance that, instead of being cast down 
on account of his heavy punishment, he ought to be 
grateful that he had not been court-martialed and shot. 
While his condition aroused my sympathy, I laid before 
him tlie gravity of his crime, then vainly pleaded with 
the military authorities for his release. They argued 
that his offence was so great he richly deserved further 
punishment, and that his release woukl be detrimental 
to the discipline of the army. The boy at last became 
very sick in his prison. His father, large both in body 
and in heart, came, and so put the case of his son before 
the officers in command, that they discharged him 
from the army. 

This case was a type of many others. Some young 
men, among the hundreds of thousands that enlisted 
in the Northern and Southern armies, failed adequately 
to count the cost of what they so enthusiastically 
undertook to do. Two young men of St. Louis, who 
enlisted in the Confederate army, were doing duty under 



Prisons and Prisoners 191 

Price, in Missouri. November had come with its chilHng 
storms of rain and sleet; and without a tent they were 
compelled to spend a night in the shelterless field. 
They had gathered some logs and sticks and were en- 
deavoring, as the gusts of wind swept over them, to 
light a fire; but their kindling was wet and the wind 
would quickly blow out their matches. Shivering with 
cold that seemed to pierce to the very marrow of their 
bones, looking in blank despair on those wet sticks 
and logs, one of them said: "Joe, soldiering is not what 
it is cracked up to be. It is just hell, and I am going to 
get out of it as soon as I can." Still he was an ardent 
Southerner, but just for a little his burning zeal was 
damped and cooled by a chill November rain. 

But my chief experiences were with Confederate 
prisoners. While the disloyal of my own denomination 
abhorred my politics and exercised at best a rather 
strained and attenuated brotherly love towards me, 
when, for any cause, they were so unfortunate as to get 
into prison, they often urgently appealed to me for 
succor. 

Out on the Gravois road, a few miles west of the city, 
lived a Baptist preacher. He had sandy hair, a florid 
face, a muscular frame, and was about six feet in 
height. While rough in his manners, he was a man of 
great force. Brought up, or as he said, "raised," in 
Mississippi, he was an uncompromising rebel. Late 
in the autumn of 1861, up in the State, at the town of 
Mexico, in a dark night, he swiftly rode on horseback 
through the lines of the Federal troops stationed there, 
and as he did so holloed: "Hurrah for Jeff Davis." 
He was tracked to his home and arrested. He appeared 
at my door about nine o'clock in the morning, in a 
buggy, sitting between two United States officers. 



192 A Border City in the Civil War 

One of them rang my bell and I went out to see their 
prisoner. While he heartily despised me for my loyalty, 
he had evidently concluded that I was just the man 
to help him in his dire extremity. I asked the officers 
on what charge he had been arrested. They said that 
they had not been informed. I then asked him the 
same question, and he said that he did not know. He 
told no lie, but at the same time he could have very 
accurately guessed. Still, he could not have been 
reasonably'' expected to incriminate himself before the 
officers who had him in charge. He blubbered over his 
sad plight and entreated me to intercede with the 
provost marshal on his behalf. His tears, however, 
were not on account of his misdemeanor; he evidently 
cried because he had been caught. Nevertheless, I 
told him that I would do what I could for him. 

A heavy damp snow was falling fast. I had to go on 
foot through it fully a mile and a half to intercede for 
this enemy of my country; while he rode to his prison- 
house in a buggy at the government's expense. On my 
way I met one of my deacons, a physician. He was by 
birth a Kentuckian, but staunchly loyal. Thinking 
that I had no right to expose myself to that pitiless 
storm, he asked me in peremptory tones where I was 
going. I told him. He then wished to know what offence 
the imprisoned preacher had committed. I replied 
that I did not certainly know, but a report was abroad 
that he had ridden in a dark night through the picket 
line of the Federal army at Mexico, and, having been 
called upon to halt, had put spurs to his horse, and had 
holloed as he rode at breakneck speed to elude the 
musket-balls of the soldiers, "Hurrah for Jeff Davis! " 
The deacon cried out in indignation, "You go home out 
of this storm and let him sweat." But I could not break 



Prisons and Prisoners 193 

my word to the prisoner, so I trudged on, saw the 
provost marshal, and pleaded as earnestly as I could 
for my incarcerated brother. He said that he would 
grant me anything that I might ask within the bounds 
of reason, but on account of the imperative demands 
upon him, he could not try the prisoner until the next 
day. Having done my best at the office of the provost 
marshal, I walked a mile through the damp snow, 
that was still copiously falling, to the prison at the 
corner of Fifth and Myrtle Streets, to make known to 
my rebel neighbor the result of my effort on his behalf. 
When I told him that his case could not be heard till 
the next day, he said in a disappointed tone: " Then, 
I must stay here all night, — it is a horrible place." 
"Yes," I quickly replied, "it is a slave-pen." His 
eyes filled with tears as he said, "I never sold a slave." 
His reply made me regret the thrust that I had incon- 
siderately given him. But in a moment he added, 
"I wish that I had some apples and tobacco." Though 
I did not use tobacco myself I went through the storm 
about a mile, purchased for him out of my own pocket 
the desired articles, carried them back to him, and 
giving him my best wishes, I bade him good day, leaving 
him in that old slave-pen to his tobacco, apples and 
thoughts. 

The next morning he was brought before the Military 
court, which having heard his case, through its great 
leniency decided, in spite of his grave offence, to dis- 
charge him. Returning to his home he had to go by 
my door; but he did not call to thank me for what I 
had done on his behalf ; neither did he write me, nor did 
he ever in any way express the slightest gratitude or 
appreciation of what I did for him on that stormy day in 
order to secure his deliverance from the slave-pen prison. 



194 A Border City in the Civil War 

A word more in reference to so extraordinary a char- 
acter may not be amiss. Many months afterwards 
he had the brass to come to me again. Without any 
allusion to our relations in the past, he at once went on 
to say, that General Schofield by a military order had 
taken away the firearms of all in his neighborhood, and 
among the rest his shotgun had been seized and con- 
fiscated; that wild turkeys were coming into his corn- 
field, and he wished me to ask the general to grant him 
a permit to buy a shotgun so that he might shoot them. 
Making no allusion to what I had done for him in 1861, 
I asked him, "Are you a Union man? " He replied, 
"Yes, in the Constitution." "Why," I said, "do you 
say in the Constitution? Why do you not say, yes, 
I am a Union man? " "Well," he answered, "the fact 
is, I am a secessionist." "Why," said I, "did you not 
then honestly say so? " "Oh! I don't want to talk 
about that," he responded, "I want to get a shotgun." 
I then said to him, " I will ask the general to grant you a 
permit to get one on the condition that, if Missouri 
becomes a free State, you will leave it forever." He 
said that he would gladly agree to that since he would 
not live in a free State. So I went with him to the 
military headquarters and said to the general: "This 

is Rev. Mr. , a Baptist minister; under your order 

his shotgun was taken away from him. The wild 
turkeys are coming into his cornfield and he has nothing 
to shoot them with. I cannot vouch for his loyalty, 
but I feel quite sure that if he has a shotgun he will 
not shoot black-Republicans, and he wishes you to 
give him a permit to buy one." The general replied, 
" I will grant the permit, if you say so." "Well," 
I responded, "I think it safe to do so;" and writing 
out the permit he handed it to the secession preacher, 



Prisons and Prisoners 195 

who went away happy. I never saw him again. A 
friend told me that a few months afterwards he heard 
him bitterly denounce me in a large public assembly. 

But let us now turn to another scene. On Thanks- 
giving Day of 1861, a secession family, living next door 
to me, determined to cheer some of their disloyal friends 
shut up in the Gratiot Street prison, by setting before 
them an abundant and delicious dinner. Their neigh- 
bors of like political views threw themselves with ardor 
into the scheme. Early in the day baskets full of appe- 
tizing food were brought from every direction, until 
these parcels, piled one upon another, quite covered 
the floor of their front hall. Then a covered wagon 
appeared at the door. Into it all these tempting viands 
were hastily packed and carried to the military prison. 
Those in charge of them asked the officer of the day, 
if they could give the prisoners a Thanksgiving dinner. 
He assured them that it would give him great pleasure 
to receive the food that had been so thoughtfully and 
kindly provided, but since it was contrary to orders to 
allow any outsiders to enter the prison, he would him- 
self distribute the contents of the baskets and be careful 
that the most needy should not be overlooked. Two 
Iowa regiments that had just arrived had been sent 
down to Gratiot Street to do guard duty. They were 
weary, cold and hungry. The officer who had received 
the food, sent by devoted secession women, deeming 
these newly arrived soldiers to be the most needy, gave 
to them the roast turkey, fried chicken, mince pies, 
cranberry sauce, roast pig and apple sauce, and kept 
the disloyal within the prison walls on wholesome, 
but coarser, diet. While that commanding officer told 
no explicit lie, the ethics of his act will hardly bear very 
close inspection. He may have justified his deception 



196 A Border City in the Civil War 

by the fact that we were in a state of war, and have 
erroneously thought that war excuses "a multitude 
of sins." 

A little later, one of my ministerial brethren was 
lodged in the same prison. After having been there for 
several weeks, being in great anguish of spirit, he sent 
for me. When I met him he entreated me to secure if 
possible his discharge from that repulsive place. My 
heart was touched at his distress, and I assured him 
that the military authorities would gladly release him 
if he would take the oath of allegiance to the United 
States. I urged that this was a very reasonable demand 
on the part of the government that had protected his 
property and person for many years, and had never 
interfered in the slightest degree with his rights or 
liberty. He was, however, unconvinced, and sullenly 
refused to do what I urged upon him. But a few days 
afterwards, sick at heart from lying in prison, he de- 
cided to take the oath, did so, and was discharged. 
But when he went out to his freedom his conscience 
smote him for what he had done. He walked along the 
street hesitatingly and in zigzag lines. At times he 
stopped and gazed intently on the pavement. One 
of his friends met him and asked: "What is the mat- 
ter? " He replied: "Matter enough, I was over- 
persuaded to take the oath of allegiance to the awful 
government of the United States, and feel as if I should 
go to hell." 

Such were some of the military prisons and such 
were some of the prisoners in St. Louis during the civil 
war. Those who kept these prisons and guarded these 
prisoners were patriots, intent on preserving the Union; 
those who were incarcerated and guarded were equally 
intent on disrupting the Union and establishing the 



Prisons and Prisoners 197 

Southern Confederacy, whose corner-stone, according 
to its Vice-President, was slavery. Both could not have 
been right, but both believed themselves to be right, 
and suffered for their faith. 



CHAPTER XIII 

LYON IN CONFERENCE AND IN CAMPAIGN 

War really began in Missouri at the taking of Camp 
Jackson. But many hoped against hope that the fire 
that then began to flame might be dampened and 
extinguished. Eminent citizens of St. Louis besought 
the Governor and his chief of staff, General Price, 
to ask for a conference with General Lyon, that, by a 
frank, honest interchange of views, some basis for peace 
might be discovered. This these officers reluctantly 
consented to do. When their request was presented 
to General Lyon, some men, who commanded his confi- 
dence, urged him to grant it, in order that no one in 
the future might be able to say that he refused to con- 
sider any measure by which war might have been hon- 
orably averted. Lyon, yielding to this reasonable 
solicitation, agreed to participate in the proposed con- 
ference. But with him time was precious. Harney had 
relinquished his command of the department on May 
30th, and Lyon had assumed it on the following day. 
Since that time he had been exceedingly busy in gather- 
ing and equipping troops. To him war in Missouri, 
probably fierce and protracted, was inevitable, and he 
was bending every energy upon the work of preparation, 
that he might be able to wage it successfully. He con- 
sidered any suspension of his activity as intolerable. 
Whatever was done by way of compromise must be 




BRIGAI>1ER-GENEKAL NAIHANIKL LKUN. 



[Page 198 



Lyon in Conference and in Campaign 199 

done without delay. So he fixed an early day for the 
solicited conference. He announced that if the Governor 
and his general, or either of them, "should visit St. 
Louis on, or before, the 12th of June, in order to hold 
an interview with him for the purpose of effecting, 
if possible, a pacific solution of the troubles in Missouri, 
they should be free from molestation or arrest during 
their journey to St. Louis, and their return from St. 
Louis to Jefferson City." Thus assured of safe-conduct, 
in the afternoon of June 10th, Governor Jackson, Gen- 
eral Price, and one of the Governor's aides-de-camp, 
Thomas L. Snead, left the State capital for our city. 
On the following morning, June 11th, they apprised 
Lyon that they were at the Planters' Hotel. In the 
afternoon of that day, the conference took place. ^ 
The fact of that vitally important meeting became gen- 
erally known. All intelligent persons in the city were 
full of interest, not to say anxiety, in reference to the 
outcome. 

Both parties to the rapidly developing national 
conflict were ably and fittingly represented in the con- 
ference. The Unionists felt that their interests, iden- 
tical with the national interests, would be wisely guarded 
by General Lyon, Colonel Blair and Major Conant. 
General Lyon opened the conference, stating that it 
would be conducted on the side of the Union by Colonel 
Blair, than whom no one was better equipped for the 
responsible task. But as the deliberations between 
these men of irreconcilable views proceeded, Lyon, who 
had profoundly studied the underlying questions and 
principles that divided the Federals and the Confeder- 
ates, and was by nature aggressive and inclined to dis- 
putation, gradually assumed the part of leader in that 

'Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, p. 363. 



200 A Border City in the Civil War 

momentous interchange of views, while Mr. Blair lapsed 
into silence, a satisfied and admiring listener. State and 
national sovereignty there met face to face. They were 
opposites. Both could not be true. Hours passed in 
seeking some basis of agreement, but none was found. 
So long as each party held his view unflinchingly, 
there could be no common standing ground. Colonel 
Blair, afterwards speaking of the conference, declared 
that he said little or nothing, and did not need 
to; that General Lyon, in the most thorough 
and lucid manner, analyzed every proposal submitted 
by the Governor, pointed out every subterfuge and 
held up to the light every fallacy. The main con- 
tention of the secessionists was that the United States 
had no right to organize and arm Home Guards, nor to 
send troops into, and to occupy, the territory of sovereign 
Missouri; if General Lyon would agree to these vital 
propositions, on other grounds they were willing for the 
sake of peace to make what seemed to them great and 
humiliating concessions. But what they asked no 
loyal officer of the United States army would or could 
grant. So, after the conference had lasted nearly five 
hours, and all the views presented had been thoroughly 
discussed, Lyon closed this memorable, crucial debate 
by saying: " Rather" (he was still seated and spoke 
deliberately, slowly and with peculiar emphasis) "rather 
than concede to the State of Missouri the right to demand 
that my government shall not enlist troops within her 
limits, or bring troops into the State whenever it pleases, 
or move its troops at its own will into, out of, or through 
the State; rather than concede to the State of Missouri 
for one single instant the right to dictate to my govern- 
ment in any matter however unimportant, I would " 
(rising as he said this, and pointing in turn to every one 



Lyon in Conference and in Campaign 201 

in the room) "see you, and you, and you, and you, and 
you, and every man, woman and child in the State 
dead and buried." Then turning to the Governor, he 
said: "This means war. In an hour one of my officers 
will call for you and conduct you out of my lines." 
And then, without another word, without an inclination 
of the head, without even a look, he turned upon his 
heel and strode out of the room, rattling his spurs and 
clanking his sabre. ^ 

The report of the abortive deliberations of the con- 
ference spread with lightning speed through the city and 
State. But notwithstanding the untoward result, it 
brought relief to all loyal hearts; for while all desired 
peace, a host of true men and women preferred war to 
peace with dishonor. Like their general, rather than 
tamely yield the vital question at stake, they were 
ready to sacrifice their property and lay down their 
lives. It was inspiring to feel the touch and thrill of this 
unselfish devotion. 

The Governor and his attendants at once returned to 
Jefferson City. They reached their destination at two 
o'clock in the morning of the 12th. The Governor at 
once issued a proclamation, calling for fifty thousand 
volunteers to repel the invasion of the State. ^ For fear 
of the speedy coming of Lyon by rail, General Price 
ordered the railroad bridges across the Osage and Gas- 
conade to be burned. JefTerson City was hastily evac- 
uated. The archives of the State were removed, and 
such material of war as had been gathered at the capital, 
including even the armory and workshop. The rebel 
forces were concentrated at Boonville, farther to the 
west, for the purpose of holding that place and the 

* Snead, The Fight for Missouri, pp. 199-200. 
'Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Doc, p. 363. 



202 A Border City in the Civil War 

Missouri River long enough at least for the secessionists 
in the northern counties of the commonwealth to rally 
to the support of the fugitive State government. The 
Governor desired if possible to segregate and solidify 
the disloyal, and so carry the State by force over into 
the Southern Confederacy. 

But the lynx-eyed, alert Lyon thwarted that scheme. 
When he left the Planters' Hotel in the evening of June 
11th, he at once telegraphed the national War Depart- 
ment for five thousand additional stand of arms, and 
for authority to enlist more troops in the State.^ What 
he asked was granted without hesitation or delay. 
The next day, with characteristic energy, he prepared 
his small army for an offensive campaign. A part of it, 
on the 13th, he ordered to Springfield, in southwest 
Missouri, to cut ofT the retreat of Price, whom he ex- 
pected to drive in that direction. Knowing that he 
could not use the Pacific Railroad, since its main bridges 
had been destroyed, on the same day, with the rest of 
his army, he moved up the Missouri by steamboat. 
On the 15th, he quietly took possession of Jefferson City, 
and garrisoned it. On Sunday, the 16th, he was steam- 
ing on toward Boonville. On Monday, a few miles south 
of that city, he met and easily dispersed the rebel army, 
which, having been hastily gathered, was raw, undisci- 
plined, and poorly armed. The collision between these 
hostile forces did not, in the sacrifice of life, reach the 
dignity of a battle. Only two or three on each side 
were killed and a few wounded. The Union army, 
however, took a goodly company of prisoners, together 
with considerable war material and camp equipage; 
and this comparatively bloodless conflict secured the 
end that from the beginning Lyon had clearly in view. 

* W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 384. 



Lyon in Conference and in Campaign 203 

By taking Camp Jackson in May, he had suppressed 
the open disloyalty of St. Louis and the counties adja- 
cent to it, assuring their support of the Union; by dis- 
persing Price's gathering host at Boonville he cleared 
the Missouri River of all formidable hostile forces; 
isolated the counties north of the river, which were 
rich, populous, and largely disloyal; drove the fleeing 
Governor with his general and army panic-stricken 
into the extreme southwest of the State; and sent Gen- 
eral Price, with several members of his stafT, on a flying 
expedition into northwestern Arkansas, to urge General 
McCulloch of the Confederate army to invade Missouri 
and deliver him and his retreating troops from utter 
disaster. 

Lyon and his army were received with exultant 
gladness by the many loyal citizens of Boonville, and 
on the 18th he issued a proclamation, assuring all that 
were peaceful and law-abiding of his protection. He 
also paroled the prisoners that he had taken, putting 
them under oath not again to take up arms against the 
United States. ' ' 

Without going further into detail, which would be aside 
from our object, it is sufHcient to say that Lyon, follow- 
ing up his victory at Boonville as best he could, with the 
inadequate force under his command, finally made his 
headquarters at Springfield. There we must leave him 
for a time. Every act that he had thus far performed, 
every step of his victorious march, had been watched 
with breathless interest by both the loyal and disloyal 
of St. Louis. The former well knew that his victory 
was theirs; the latter considered his triumph their 
defeat. 

But while Lyon with unusual energy and startling 
celerity was prosecuting his victorious campaign in the 



204 A Border City in the Civil War 

State, a lamentable event within the city saddened all 
hearts. On the east side of Seventh Street, between 
Olive and Locust, in a substantial brick building, 
was the Recorder's Court. On Saturday, June 15th, 
a company of volunteer soldiers, belonging to the 
regiment of Colonel Kallman, was marching by, when 
somebody, from a window of the story just above the 
court-room, fired a revolver into the ranks of these 
armed volunteers. They were raw and undisciplined. 
Being Germans, they were bitterly hated by the seces- 
sionists. They had become sensitive and vindictive 
under the stinging taunts which had been wantonly 
hurled at them by their hostile neighbors. So now, 
when unexpectedly fired upon, exasperated, and evi- 
dently without a moment's thought, they turned and 
fired into the building, from which they had been 
assailed. They did not stop to think from which story 
the hostile shot had come, and emptied their muskets 
into the room occupied by the innocent recorder. 
He and three other guiltless citizens were instantly 
killed, while two others were mortally wounded and 
another sadly injured.^ Such not unprovoked, but 
inconsiderate, action on the part of these Union soldiers 
for the time being materially damaged the cause of 
the loyal in our city and put weapons into the hands 
of the secessionists. Nevertheless, all conservative 
citizens on either side were grateful that an event so 
ill-starred did not lead, as it naturally might have done, 
to general bloody conflict in our streets. 

The whole affair was investigated; not very thor- 
oughly, many of us thought. Those who attempted 
it, found it difficult to get at the bottom facts. 
Their investigation at last came to a rather inglorious 

> Moore's Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, pp. 105-106. 



Lyon in Conference and in Campaign 205 

end, leaving the community in doubt as to whether 
any one fired upon the soldiers. Several in the neighbor- 
hood testified that they saw no one shoot from the 
building; but one man declared that he saw the shot 
from the second-story window, and described the posi- 
tion of the man's arm when he discharged his revolver 
into the ranks of the unoffending soldiers; but there 
was no other witness, aside from the soldiers them- 
selves, to confirm this testimon}^, and as only in the 
mouth of two or three witnesses so grave a matter 
could be satisfactorily established, the investigators 
returned the Scotch verdict, " Not proven." This, 
however, was quite unsatisfactory to thinking men. 
Very few believed that these soldiers, without provoca- 
tion, fired into the room of a civil magistrate with whom 
they were unacquainted, and against whom they could 
have had no ill will. Still, the lamentable event was 
part and parcel of the mad effort to dismember the 
Republic, and hardly surprising in a city where earnest, 
passionate men on both sides of the great national 
conflict daily looked each other in the eye. But as it has 
often happened, so in this sad case, the innocent suf- 
fered, while the undetected guilty went free. However, 
in the onrushing tide of events, the deplorable incident 
was soon lost sight of and forgotten. 



CHAPTER XIV 

FREMONT AND FIASCO 

On the 3d of July, the States and territories west of 
the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, 
including New Mexico, were constituted the Western 
Department, under the command of Major-General 
John Charles Fremont.^ On the 26th he arrived in our 
city and took up the vastly important work confided 
to his hands. All the loyal wished him well. Many of 
them received him with exultation. He came with 
prestige. He was a renowned path finder to the Pacific. 
He had been the standard-bearer of the Republican 
party in 1856, and though defeated had polled a heavy 
vote in the most intelligent and progressive States of 
the Union. No one ever assumed militar}'^ command 
under more favorable auspices. 

He at once appointed Colonel McNeil commandant of 
St. Louis,^ that he himself, measurably free from local 
demands, might expend his energies in directing the 
larger affairs of his department. The best volunteers 
of the West rapidly and enthusiastically gathered 
around him. He gave himself without reserve to 
his great and difficult task. But from the start he 
appeared to be vainglorious. His headquarters were 
luxurious. Immediately around him he gathered a 

'W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 390. 
2 p. 410. 



Fremont and Fiasco 207 

body-guard of about three hundred men, some of whom 
were foreigners with jaw-breaking names. It was later 
shown that most of them were enlisted not to serve the 
United States, but simply the general.^ He and they, 
in full uniform, on horseback, often went thundering 
along our streets, kicking up a cloud of dust, or else 
making the mud fly. At Fremont's headquarters were 
stationed so many sentinels that it was exceedingly 
difficult to find access to his person. Eminent citizens 
of St. Louis early began to complain that he ignored 
both them and the important questions on which they 
needed his counsel. 

Moreover, there was a marked lack of system in all 
that he undertook to do. He evidently had little talent 
for details; so everything in the encampments of his 
volunteer soldiers was in confusion. All this was in- 
auspicious and disheartening. We had expected so 
much and were getting so little. 

The general soon reported to the authorities at 
Washington that his department was in a critical con- 
dition ; ^ that troops of the Southern Confederacy in 
large numbers were moving northward to aid the dis- 
loyal of Missouri; that General Pillow threatened to 
invade the State from the southeast, General Hardee 
from the south, and General McCulloch from the south- 
west; and that while the volunteers gathering at St. 
Louis to meet the invaders were numerous, many of 
them were unarmed. 

In the meantime, Lyon at Springfield, with a clear 
view of the whole situation, seeing that by far the most 
formidable rebel force, under McCulloch and Price, 
was moving upon him from the southwest, pleaded in 

» W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 612, 632, 640 to 649, 568. 
» W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 409-410. 



208 A Border City in the Civil War 

vain with Fremont to re-enforce his altogether inade- 
quate army by at least one or two regiments and to pay 
and clothe his soldiers.^ Fremont's assistant adjutant- 
general, J. C. Kelton, wrote him at Cairo, August 2d: 
" General Lyon wants soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. So 
says Colonel Hammer, who has just arrived from Spring- 
field." ^ The same day Fremont wrote General Scott: 
" Force large in front of General Lyon." But all was 
without avail. The Confederates, by a feint at New 
Madrid, in the southeastern corner of the State, had 
deceived him. Pillow was reported as being there with 
eleven thousand men.^ He was led to believe that the 
main invasion of our commonwealth was to be at that 
point. 

So the general called into his service eight river 
steamboats, loaded them with an abundance of provi- 
sions, camp equipage, ammunition and arms, and put 
on board about five thousand soldiers, infantry and ar- 
tillery. The Stars and Stripes waved proudly over each 
boat, while over the " City of Alton," " the flag steamer," 
on which were the general and his staff, waved also 
the Union Jack and a broad pennon. On August 1st this 
warlike fleet, to us an unusual and imposing sight, began 
to move down the Mississippi.* The crowds on the levee 
cheered, waved handkerchiefs, and threw up hats. But 
not a few of the more thoughtful, shaking their heads, 
said, " We believe that Lyon, whose urgent pleadings 
have been unheeded, and to whom no re-enforcements 
have been sent, is right in thinking that the main inva- 
ding rebel force is not at New Madrid, in the southeast, 
but comes from the southwest to attack him and his 

1 W. R S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 407-409. 

= W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 419-424. 

s Pp. 419-423. 

' Moore's Rebellion Record, Vox. II, D. of E., p. 62, Doc. 153, p. 467. 



Fremont and Fiasco 209 

brave little army at Springfield." And "This ostenta- 
tious expedition of Fremont," they added, "is in utter 
contrast with the silent, swift, effective movements of 
the neglected Lyon." Moreover, some of the ablest 
Union men of the city, half disheartened by the display 
on the river, exclaimed, "Fuss and feathers!" Their 
criticism may have been somewhat passionate, and per- 
haps uncalled for, but the event justified their main 
contention. There was only a handful of the enemy 
at New Madrid. But these Confederates had shrewdly 
played their game. They had diverted the attention of 
the Union general from McCulloch and Price to them- 
selves, and made it difficult for him now to re-enforce 
Lyon before he must meet the enemy. Enlightened 
by experience, Fremont ordered his fleet back to St. 
Louis. Still, his expedition was not bootless. AVhile 
he found but a few hundred rebels at New Madrid, 
and these escaped him unscathed, he laid, as he wisely 
intended to do, the foundation of a militaiy encampment 
across the river at Cairo, Illinois, from which later began 
the great campaign under Grant down the east bank 
of the Mississippi. Nevertheless the general's ostenta- 
tious and ill-starred movements disgusted many of the 
loyal of the city. Perhaps they did not fully understand 
him, but they saw enough to evoke their heated opposi- 
tion to him; some indeed defended him, for he had true 
and warm friends, but others sharply condemned him; 
while the overawed and silenced secessionists, still by 
thousands among us, looked on with satisfaction. 

In the meantime, the clear-sighted, intrepid Lyon 
at Springfield was left to shift for himself. He concluded 
that retreat would be hazardous, if not absolutely de- 
structive, in the face of a hostile force nearly three times 
as great as his own, and unhesitatingly decided to take 



210 A Border City in the Civil War 

the initiative instead of simply standing on the defen- 
sive. His matured purpose was quickly executed. 
The army of Price and McCulloch was at Wilson's 
Creek, about nine or ten miles south of Springfield. 
He determined to move upon it in two columns, the 
first under himself, the second under Colonel Siegel. 
The advance was to begin about sunset of the 9th; 
the attack was to be made at daylight the next morn- 
ing. Having given his orders, he calmly wrote General 
Fremont the following memorable letter. It was his 
last. 

" I retired to this place, as I before informed you, 
reaching here on the 5th. The enemy followed to 
within ten miles of here. He has taken a strong position 
and is recruiting his supply of horses, nmles, and pro- 
visions, by forays into the surrounding country: his 
large force of mounted men enabhng him to do this 
without much annoyance from me. I find my position 
extremely embarrassing, and am at present unable 
to determine whether I shall be able to maintain my 
ground, or be forced to retire. I can resist any attack 
from the front, but, if the enemy were to surround me, 
I must retire. I shall hold my ground as long as possible, 
though I may, without knowing how far, endanger the 
safety of my entire force, with its valuable material, 
being induced, by the important considerations in- 
volved, to take this step. The enemy showed himself 
in considerable force j^esterday five miles from here, 
and has doubtless a full purpose of attacking me." ^ 

It has remained for an officer of the Confederate 
army, Thomas L. Snead, in his comment on this letter 
to utter perhaps the most eloquent eulogy pronounced 

iPeckham's General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861, pp. 
324-325, 



Fremont and Fiasco 211 

on General Lyon. " Not one word about the desperate 
battle that he was to fight on the morrow; not one 
fault-finding utterance; not a breath of complaint! 
But true to his convictions; true to his flag; true to 
the Union men of Missouri who confided in and followed 
him; true to himself; and true to duty, he went out 
to battle against a force twice as great as his own, with 
a calmness that was as pathetic as his courage was sub- 
lime." 1 

The next morning before sunrise, the 10th of August, 
he vigorously attacked the enemy, who were taken 
utterly by surprise. It is not within the scope of my 
purpose to attempt any description of the fierce and 
bloody battle that followed. It raged for fully six 
hours. According to the most conservative estimates, 
Lyon lost of his small army of four or five thousand men 
more than thirteen hundred in killed, wounded, and 
missing. The Confederates lost still more. Lyon was 
twice wounded, and afterwards, while leading a regiment 
of his troops in a desperate charge, was shot through 
the heart and instantly killed; but even after his death 
his plucky little army fought on for a time unflinchingly, 
and with a large measure of success. Nor did they aban- 
don the well-contested field until the ammunition of a 
large part of their force was utterly exhausted. Even 
then they retreated in good order. They had inflicted 
a blow so terrible and unexpected that the Confederates 
were unwilhng or unable to pursue them. Having rested 
a few hours at Springfield, they retreated unmolested 
to Rolla, with all their wagons, provisions, and muni- 
tions of war; while McCulloch and Price sat down at 
Springfield and wrote reports of their great victory at 
Wilson's Creek. Some of their subordinate officers in 

» Snead, The Fight for Missouri, pp. 266-267. 



212 A Border City in the Civil War 

their reports declared with refreshing frankness that 
Lyon, in his attack on their camp, had completely 
surprised them. 

A few days later came the last act of this sad drama. 
The body of General Lyon was brought back to us. 
It was borne through the city and across the Mississippi 
to the railroad depot. It was escorted by prominent 
citizens, city officials, regiments of soldiers, infantry, 
cavalry and artillery, marching with arms reversed. 
Conspicuous in this martial array was General Fremont, 
with his staiT and body-guard. The bands played 
plaintive dirges. The bells tolled. The national flags 
of the city, encampments and Arsenal were draped 
and at half-mast. A great, sad, silent throng, on either 
side of the street along which the funeral cortege moved, 
stood with heads uncovered. The dust of one of the 
best friends the loyal of St. Louis ever had thus passed 
on its way to burial in Connecticut, the native State 
of the dauntless hero, who poured out his heart's blood 
at Wilson's Creek to save our commonwealth and city 
from secession. But strange as it may seem to the 
present generation, we were then and there so utterly 
divided in judgment and feeling that while many 
mourned, some rejoiced; tears stained some cheeks, 
smiles rippled across some faces. 

And during all this pageant of mourning our hearts 
bled afresh, as we remembered that the ear of Fremont 
had been apparently deaf to Lyon when he pleaded for 
at least one more regiment of troops, and was left un- 
aided to fight, against great odds, a forlorn and desperate 
battle in which he laid down his life. We knew then, as 
we know now, that Fremont could have granted the re- 
quest of his subordinate ; that General Pope had in the 
northern part of the State an army of fully nine thousand 



Fremont and Fiasco 213 

men that were not just then imperatively needed there; 
that Fremont called for and put under his own immediate 
command a part of that force; that he sent troops at 
that time into different parts of the State; that two 
regiments were guarding RoUa, and that one of them, 
without jeopardizing any important interest, could have 
been sent to Lyon; but for some occult reason he re- 
fused to lift a finger in time to help his capable subor- 
dinate, but abandoned him to defeat and death. To 
be sure, on August 5th, he ordered a regiment of a thou- 
sand men at Fort Leavenworth to re-enforce Lyon,^ 
but that was too late. There was no railroad connection. 
The order had to be sent by express. Before the regi- 
ment had gotten half way to Springfield the fate of 
Lyon was sealed. On the same date, August 5th, 
he ordered Colonel Stevenson, commanding the Seventh 
Missouri Volunteers, to report to Lyon with despatch. 
When the colonel reached RoUa, he found no transpor- 
tation for his troops. They could not reach their desti- 
nation in time. The remembrance of this on that 
funeral march rankled in every loyal heart. 

But when our general reported to the War Department 
the battle of Wilson's Creek, in just and fitting words 
he eulogized the slain hero. In a measure that dulled 
the edge of our resentment towards him, and partially 
revived our wavering confidence in him. We were still 
further reconciled to him, when, seeing the anarchy by 
which we were threatened, and believing that certain 
inimical movements among us could not be adequately 
and decisively dealt with by ordinary civil processes, 
on August 14th, he declared martial law in St. Louis 
and St. Louis County. At that time, according to the 
most conservative estimate, there were in our city at 

^W. E. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 426. 



214 A Border City in the Civil War 

least eight thousand pronounced and active secessionists, 
and seven thousand of them were reported to be armed 
with weapons of various kinds.^ They were prepared, 
whenever their compatriots in rebellion should attack 
the city from without, to join hands with them by a 
vigorous movement from within. So while the necessity 
of martial law was regretted by all, its proclamation 
came as a distinct relief and assurance to all the loyal. 

Major J. McKinstry of the United States army was 
appointed provost marshal. He was an able, faithful 
officer and discharged his delicate and weighty duties 
with fearlessness and thoughtful discrimination. He at 
once issued a proclamation, declaring that he should 
not interfere with the operation of the civil law, except 
in cases where that law was found inadequate to the 
maintenance of the public peace and safety.^ He 
followed this considerate and reassuring manifesto with 
orders forbidding under heavy penalties all persons not 
in the military service of the United States, or in the 
regularly constituted police of the city, carrying con- 
cealed weapons, and prohibiting the sale of all firearms 
without a special permit from his office. This was stri- 
king at the root of all the dangers that immediately 
threatened the loyal of the city and county, and we 
retired that night with a deeper sense of security than 
we had felt for several months. 

On the following day, he suppressed The War Bulletin 
and The Missourian, papers that, to the detriment of the 
loyal, had maliciously and shamefully misrepresented 
the movements of the Federal troops in the State. But 
under a government like ours, where all enjoy such 

»w. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 460. 

« Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. II, Doc. 183, pp. 626-627; also 
W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 442. 






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Fremont and Fiasco 215 

unbounded freedom of speech, such acts, whether by 
the direction of civil or military authority, are usually 
offensive, whatever public necessity ma}' be urged as 
a justification of them. And both the right and expedi- 
ency of suppressing even these virulent secession jour- 
nals were doubted by very many of the Unionists. 
But, at a later day, we felt that we could approve, if not 
applaud, much of what the provost marshal wrote to 
the editor of the Christian Advocate, who had inquired 
if the rumors were true that the marshal intended to 
suppress his paper. The suggestive reply was : " Permit 
me to say that in my judgment, in these times of political 
excitement, and heated discussion, and civil war, it 
would be more becoming, as well as more consistent, 
that a public newspaper, belonging to, and advocating 
the doctrines and principles of the church of Christ, 
should abstain from publishing articles of a political 
character, calculated to inflame the passions of men, 
and evidently hostile to the government of the country. 
Let your journal be a religious paper, as it professes 
to be, and it will never come under the discipline of this 
department." 

After the suppression of these papers, rigorous meas- 
ures multiplied. The provost marshal, by a general 
order, forbade any one to pass beyond the limits of the 
city and county of St. Louis without a special permit 
from his office. That those born since the war may know 
under what stringent regulations all of us lived for many 
months, see the facsimile of both sides of a pass issued 
to myself, in October of 1861. 

These requirements made and strictly enforced by 
martial law greatly annoyed many, even among the 
loyal of the city and county, especially elderly men and 
women, who had spent most of their lives in unrestrained 



216 A Border City in the Civil War 

liberty of movement. To be compelled to solicit in 
person a permit from the provost marshal to leave or 
enter the city seemed to them an arrogant and galling 
invasion of their freedom. And while they bowed to 
this inexorable demand so necessary to guard the fealty 
of their city and State to the Union, it was a yoke to 
which they miwillingly submitted, and under which 
they chafed. 

I well remember meeting at that time a large, venerable 
man, who by a multitude of people was affectionately 
called Father Welsh. He was a pioneer Baptist minister. 
He had long lived in St. Louis County, and had preached 
not only in churches, schoolhouses, and private resi- 
dences, but in summer in groves under the canopy of 
leafy boughs. He was not only generally respected, 
but sincerely loved by very many who had been blessed 
through his faithful, sympathetic ministrations. He was 
loyal to his country. His patriotism was unqualified 
and ardent, but to him martial law was abhorrent. 
He complained bitterly that one as old and well-known 
as he was should be compelled to solicit a pass from 
a United States officer, in order that, unmolested by 
military sentinels, he might enter and leave the city 
and county where he had so long proclaimed the 
gospel. And he evidently represented many of un- 
sullied patriotism, who deeply felt the infringement 
of their accustomed liberties. But in a border city, we 
were all compelled to learn by experience the difference 
between a state of war and a state of peace. 

But if martial law was so distasteful even to some 
of the truly loyal, what was it to the men and women 
among us, who were aiding and abetting those in rebel- 
lion against the Federal government? They could not 
take the stringent oath printed on the pass, without 



Fremont and Fiasco 217 

which it could not be granted to them. If they should 
undertake to get out of the city or county without 
a pass, in all probability they would be challenged and 
arrested by the military sentinels, and, unable to take 
any oath of allegiance, would be duly landed in durance 
vile. Rather than run such risks, most of them, mutter- 
ing their indignant protests, sat down in their homes 
and sulkily waited for deliverance. But the kind of 
deliverance that they ardently longed for happily never 
came. 

On the same day that the provost marshal issued his 
order in reference to passes. General Fremont put the 
whole State under martial law, and, as many con- 
tended, unwarrantably assuming the functions of the 
general government, proclaimed the freedom of all 
slaves belonging to those guilty of disloyalty to the 
United States.^ He made good his extraordinary proc- 
lamation by explicit act. On September 12th, notwith- 
standing the President had written him on the 2d, ta- 
king exception to this manifesto, he manumitted two 
slaves, belonging to Thomas L. Snead of St. Louis, 
and issued their manumission papers over his signature 
as major-general.^ Lincoln kindly called his attention 
to the fact that he was transcending his authority, 
and gave him the opportunity to modify his own policy, 
without any open declaration of dissent on the part of 
the general government. But in reply, Fremont pre- 
ferred that the President himself should modify the 
obnoxious proclamation;^ so, reluctantly but firmly, 

» Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 10, Doc. 18, p. 36. 
W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 466-469. 

'Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 25, Doc. 43, p. 
126. 

Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. Ill, Doc, p. 129. 

» W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, p. 477. 



218 A Border City in the Civil War 

Mr. Lincoln publicly set aside so much of the general's 
proclamation of August 30th as pertained to the manu- 
mission of slaves belonging to rebels.^ 

The question on which the President and his general 
clashed was confessedly delicate and manifestly per- 
plexing to those in administrative circles. At bottom, 
the duty of the President was clear. Since slavery was 
a local institution he could not legally interfere with it 
in any loyal State; and, as a State, Missouri had declared 
against secession. Just what, however, might be 
rightly done, according to the laws of war, with the 
slaves of the disloyal in loyal States was as yet appar- 
ently not altogether clear to those in authority at 
Washington. Still, on grounds of expediency, con- 
servative action was manifestly wisest, in order not 
unnecessarily to alienate the loyal pro-slavery element 
of the border States. The problem in all its bearings 
greatly agitated the Unionists of our city. Upon it they 
were divided in both judgment and sentiment. Some 
said: "The enslavement of the negro is the real cause 
of the war. By law he is declared to be property ; and 
if, as has been done before our eyes, a general may 
confiscate buildings belonging to the disloyal, and 
appropriate them to the use of the United States, 
why can he not treat the slave property of rebels in 
the same way?" "But," their opponents replied, 
" this is what Fremont did not do with the slaves of 
Mr. Snead; he did not turn them over to the United 
States to be used in promoting the interests of the Federal 
government; he simply set them free. He is putting 
himself forward as an emancipator." So the ideas 
of staunch Unionists were in conflict. Evidently the 
most intelligent and thoughtful unhesitatingly sus- 

* P. 486. 




THE AUTHOR, GAI.ISHA ANDKKSON, IN 18C1, WHEN THE 
PASS WAS GRANTED HIM. 

lPage218 



Fremont and Fiasco 219 

tained the President in his modification of the general's 
manifesto. And without expressing here any opinion 
as to whether or not their judgment of Fremont was 
just, it is true that many of them began to feel that in 
attempting to do what in itself as a matter of merely 
abstract justice was right, he was quite too impulsive, 
effusive, and spectacular, and that he had clearly ex- 
ceeded his authority. In fact he was attempting to do 
what the general government felt itself debarred from 
doing by constitutional law and by a late specific act 
of Congress. 

But Fremont's career, as commander of the Western 
Department, now drew rapidly to its close. He had 
gathered an army of twenty-five thousand men; but 
when the brave Mulligan at Lexington, on the Missouri 
River, in the western part of the State, was besieged 
by a rebel force more than four times greater than his 
own, and yet fought on pluckily for days, Fremont 
failed to re-enforce him. To be sure, he made what 
seemed to us a rather belated and languid effort so to do, 
but the troops ordered by him to Lexington failed 
to reach their destination before Mulligan was com- 
pelled to surrender.^ This was a blow so disastrous 
to the Union cause, that the loyal of our city were 
filled with disappointment and discontent. Some of 
them murmured their disapprobation of the com- 
manding general, some openly and bitterly denounced 
him. The Evening News, a Union journal, in a strong, 
manly editorial, entitled " The Fall of Lexington," 
sharply criticized his failure to re-enforce Mulligan, and 
for this criticism, the proprietor, Charles G. Ramsay, 
was arrested by order of the provost marshal, taken 
to headquarters and there examined by the military 

» Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 32, Doc. 33, p. 70. 



220 A Border City in the Civil War 

authorities. He was sent to prison, and his paper was 
suppressed. All the manuscript in his office was seized 
and the building, where his paper was published, was 
put into the possession of a provost-guard.^ With very 
few dissenting voices, this invasion of the freedom of 
the press was sharply condemned by Union men. The 
occurrence added largely to the distrust of the capacity 
of the general for a command so large and difficult. 

The surrender of Mulligan's small heroic army at 
Lexington stimulated Fremont to more strenuous 
effort. He now contemplated marching against the 
enemy that was so rapidly gaining strength in west and 
southwest Missouri. But in that event St. Louis would 
be left quite uncovered; so to provide for the defence 
of the city in the absence of his army, he proceeded to 
surround it on the north, west and south with earth- 
works, in which he placed great guns. These works he 
intended to man with a few hundred soldiers, who, if any 
enemy should approach, could with those big guns 
sweep with grape and canister all the roads that led to 
the city. Many of us, little acquainted with military 
af airs, looked on with curiosity mingled with wonder, 
grateful for the benign care bestowed upon us by our 
patriotic commander; but I noticed that those who 
evidently knew more of war viewed these earthworks 
with ill-concealed contempt. And during many months 
they remained unmanned, mute reminders of the wisdom 
or folly of the celebrated Fremont, under whose imme- 
diate direction they had been constructed. 

He seemed to have a mania for fortifications. He 
put Jefferson City, the capital of the State, under the 
command of Brigadier-General Ulysses S. Grant, then 

* Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 34, Doc. 58, p. 
146. 



Fremont and Fiasco 221 

unknown to fame, and especially enjoined him to fortify 
it. To this order Grant replied that he had neither 
sufficient men nor tools to fortify the place, and added: 
" Drill and discipline are more important than fortifica- 
tions," That pithy, pregnant sentence foreshadowed 
the hero of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg and Appomattox. 

At last, during the closing days of September, Fremont 
and his army, attended, as it seemed to us, with inex- 
tricable confusion and indescribable clatter, left St. 
Louis for Jefferson City. No armed host ever went forth 
to battle made up of nobler men. The best blood of the 
West ran in their veins. They were unusually intelli- 
gent and patriotic. Price, apparently always unwilling 
to risk a doubtful conflict, abandoning his project of 
destroying the railroads in the northern part of the 
State, with an army of about twenty thousand men, 
retreated in orderly fashion towards southwest Missouri. 
The loyal of our city now took new heart and hope. 
Our general, unopposed, moved on towards Springfield. 
On the 25th of October, Zagonyi, with a hundred and 
fifty of Fremont's body-guard, made a brilliant dash 
into that city, dispersing the rebel soldiers stationed 
there to defend it. Over this we were exultant. The 
first brush with the enemy had resulted in decisive 
victory and had added glory to our arms. The people 
of Springfield, with tumultuous joy, ran up the Stars 
and Stripes in every part of their city. Fremont's 
army was now rapidly concentrated there. The enemy 
was steadily falling back toward northwestern Arkansas. 
Victory for our whole army seemed hovering near, 
ready to perch on our banners. Even if our general had 
made mistakes, he was about to atone for them all by 
utterly defeating the enemy; so loyal St. Louis felt. 

But while this apparently auspicious campaign 



222 A Border City in the Civil War 

was being prosecuted, not a few leading men, headed 
by Colonel Frank P. Blair, were urging the authorities at 
Washington to remove Fremont from his command. 
Mr. Blair was evidently bent on securing this end. He 
preferred formal charges against the general,^ in which 
he accused him of conduct unbecoming an officer and 
a gentleman, extravagance and waste of the public 
moneys, despotic and tyrannical conduct, and disobedi- 
ence of orders. These charges he sustained by many 
specifications. While Mr. Blair's onslaught seemed 
not wholly destitute of heat and partisanship, it con- 
tained so much of truth that the authorities at Wash- 
ington felt that they could not ignore it. It also greatly 
disturbed the loyal of our city and divided them 
into opposing parties, some for, some against, the 
general. 

The situation was so grave that the Secretary of War 
himself came to make an investigation. He evidently 
found much that he did not approve. He went out into 
the State to Tipton and had an interview with Fre- 
mont, who was then on the march; and when, on 
October 14th, he was about to return from St. Louis 
to Washington, he instructed Fremont to correct certain 
irregularities in his disbursement of military funds, 
to discontinue the erection of earthworks around our city, 
as wliolly unnecessary, and of barracks near his own 
headquarters.^ He also declared that no payments 
would be made to officers, other than those of the volun- 
teer forces, who had been commissioned by Fremont 
without the President's approval. Such deliverances 
from the head of the War Department betokened 
reprehensible, even if it were thoughtless, insubordina- 

> Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 43. 
2 W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 532-633. 



Fremont and Fiasco 223 

tion, and contained a pretty clear hint of incompetence. ^ 
In fact the evidence of his incompetence was starthng 
and cumulative. When at Jefferson City, he ordered 
his army to march without sufficient means of transporta- 
tion. He did the same at Tipton. His ammunition was 
wet; the Belgian rifles that he bought in Europe were 
nearly useless. In the preceding September, Grant 
at Cairo, Illinois, learning that the rebels at Columbus, 
Kentucky, had planned to seize Paducah at the 
mouth of the Tennessee, saw that he must move 
without delay if he would thwart their purpose. 
He at once telegraphed Fremont that he was ta- 
king steps to anticipate the enemy in the occupation 
of that place. He received no reply that day, September 
5th. So he telegraphed that he should start for Paducah 
that night unless he received further orders. Getting 
no response, he occupied Paducah at daylight the next 
morning, anticipating the enemy by six or eight hours. 
After he had garrisoned the town, placed General Smith 
in command and returned to Cairo, he found a despatch 
from Fremont authorizing him to take Paducah if he 
" felt strong enough." ^ 

It soon leaked out that Fremont had appointed general 
and staff officers without the authority of the general 
government; that those constituting his body-guard 
had been commissioned primarily to serve him person- 
ally rather than the United States ; ^ and that often 
ignoring his adjutant-general, he had sent in bills payable, 
approved simply by himself.* At a later day, a com- 
mittee appointed by the House of Representatives, 

»W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 544-47. 

* Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. I, pp. 265-267. 
3W. R. S. 1, Vol. VIII, p. 434. 

W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 612, 532, 540-649, 568. 

* W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 549, 568-9. 



224 A Border City in the Civil War 

after thoroughly investigating these alleged misde- 
meanors, in the main confirmed the conclusions reached 
by the Secretary of War. 

When the Secretary arrived at Washington and made 
his report, the removal of Fremont from his command 
soon followed. He was apprised of it on November 2d,^ 
and immediately took leave of his army. To most of 
us, this seemed at the moment a calamity. Not that 
we could justly find fault with the decision reached 
by the government, but we keenly felt that the time for 
promulgating this decision was most inopportune. 
The general was apparently on the eve of a great battle; 
his army glowed with enthusiasm; the prospect of 
complete victory was unusually bright; he had in fact, 
with the smallest modicum of fighting, nearly driven 
the rebel army from our State. The strong, instinctive 
feeling of the great body of loyal men and women of 
our city was that he ought to have had the chance to 
finish the campaign so auspiciously begun. But the 
authorities at Washington had, with apparently abun- 
dant justification, decreed otherwise. There was only one 
thing to be done; that was to submit without murmuring. 

By the removal of Fremont his patriotic army was 
greatly disheartened. Some of them, in the first flush 
of disappointment, declared that they would not serve 
under another leader; that when he left they would 
throw down their arms and return to their homes. 
But in his farewell address to his troops, Fremont 
rose above all personal resentment, and in a tender 
patriotic appeal exhorted them to be as faithful to his 
successor as they had been to him.^ Their sober second 

1 The order for his removal is dated at "Washington, October 24, 
1861. 

2 Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 65, Doc. 126, p. 270. 
W. R. S. 1, Vol. Ill, pp. 659-560. 



Fremont and Fiasco 225 

thought responded to his manly, unselfish words, and, 
in spite of their personal attachment to him, sinking all 
individual preferences, they determined unswervingly 
to fight on for the Union under any general that might be 
placed over them. So, as we generally anticipated, the 
highest motive prevailed. 

Fremont returned to St. Louis. The loyal Germans, 
to whom we and the whole country owed so much, 
received him with unshaken confidence, and with the 
warmest expressions of affection. At the time they were 
firmly convinced that those who had so strenuously 
urged his removal had treated him with marked injus- 
tice. These tokens of personal loyalty and confidence 
touched his heart. In response to the assurances of his 
steadfast friends, he complained of the unjust charges 
that, in his absence, had been "rained on his defenceless 
head — defenceless because his face was turned to the 
public enemy." But, though smarting under what he 
deemed grievous personal wrong, there was no note of 
recreancy to his country. 

Whatever were his faults, whatever were his mistakes, 
— and they seemed to be many, — he was a patriot, and 
laid down the duties of his department with honor. 
And I am sure that all true Unionists of St. Louis, even 
those who did not join their German fellow citizens 
either in their expressions of confidence in the retiring 
commander, or in their criticisms of those who thought 
the highest good of the Republic demanded his retire- 
ment, were nevertheless glad that these spontaneous and 
hearty demonstrations of the loyal Germans came to 
cheer the heart of Fremont in what evidently was to him 
a dark and bitter day. 

His command was turned over to General Hunter, the 
oldest oflficer in his army. But Hunter, perhaps con- 



226 A Border City in the Civil War 

sidering himself only a temporary bridge to Fremont's 
real successor, refused to continue the campaign, which 
had been so suddenly arrested by the removal of his 
chief. In a leisurely and orderly manner he soon began 
a retrograde movement, for which the onlooking loyalists 
of our city could discover no reason. No foe imme- 
diately confronted him, and if the rebels of that region 
with all their forces had borne down upon him, he 
could have easily defeated them. But from no cause 
patent to us, that splendid army, under his command, 
was retracing its steps. We viewed the inglorious spec- 
tacle with profound disgust. 

Price and his army advanced as ours retreated. Be- 
fore him, dreading his approach, fled a great company 
of well-to-do Unionists, poor whites and negroes. They 
were the heralds of his march, and the motley trail of 
our retreating troops. In a few days the great army 
was once more encamped at our gates, and the dis- 
heartened, footsore, hungry crowd that had followed in 
its wake thronged our streets and taxed to the utter- 
most our charities. Thus ended a campaign of briUiant 
promise. To the sorely tried loyalists of our city it 
seemed to be such a fiasco that by it they were reminded 
of the oft quoted words: 

" The King of France went np the hill 
With twenty thousand men ; 
The King of France came down the hill, 
And ne'er went up again." ' 

' Pigges Corantoe, or Newes from the North, p. 3. 



CHAPTER XV 

EXTRAOKDINARY ACTS 

We should first of all carefully note the fact that 
although General Lyon in desperate battle laid down 
his life, he had accomplished his purpose. He had 
sustained by arras the decision of the Convention in 
March against secession, and, in spite of all who were 
disloyally striving to reverse that decision, had held 
Missouri true in her allegiance to the Union. By his 
military movements he had put to flight the secession 
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and legislature, so that 
the State had now no governing body except her sov- 
ereign Convention. That had adjourned in March to 
meet in December, unless, on account of some exigenc}^, 
it should be called together earlier. That exigency was 
at hand. If the processes of civil government were not 
to be wholly abandoned, there must be some duly 
appointed officers of the State, through whom its author- 
ity might find legitimate expression. So while Lyon and 
his devoted soldiers kept the disloyal at bay in the 
southwestern part of the State, the committee which 
had been previously appointed by the Convention for 
that purpose, on the 6th of July, summoned the members 
of that sovereign body to meet at the capital of the 
State, on the 26th of that month. 

In response to this call, it met at the appointed time 
and place. On the 30th of July, it declared vacant the 



228 A Border City in the Civil War 

offices of Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and Secretary 
of State; also the seats of the members of the General 
Assembly. Moreover, it provided for the reorganization 
of the Supreme Court, giving to the Governor, whom 
they should choose, authority to appoint four new 
justices in addition to the three which then comprised 
the court.^ The Convention also repealed the radical 
and mischievous war measures enacted in May in secret 
session, by the now scattered and defunct legislature. 
On the 31st, it chose as provisional State officers, Judge 
Hamilton R. Gamble, Governor; Willard P. Hall, 
Lieutenant-Governor; and Mordecai Oliver, Secretary 
of State. These provisional officers were inaugurated 
on the next day, August 1st, making short, sensible, 
patriotic addresses, in which they showed their keen 
appreciation of the difficulties that attended them in 
the anomalous position into which they had been thrust 
against their will.^ 

But radical as these acts of the Convention were, 
it did not forget the sacred rights of the people. It 
decreed that its measures should be submitted to them 
for ratification or rejection, and that on the first Monday 
in November they should elect by ballot State officers, 
although on account of the stress and confusion of war, 
the date was subsequently changed to November, 
1862. It also in a carefully prepared paper explained 
to the people of the State the imperative necessity that 
called them together, and that justified their revolution- 
ary action. 

On August 3d, the new provisional Governor by 
proclamation set forth the lawless, turbulent condition 

1 The Missouri Republican, July 31st, 1861. Moore's Rebellion 
Record, Vol. 11, D. of E., p. 40. 

2 Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. II, D. of E., p. 61, Doc. 151, p. 468. 



Extraordinary Acts 229 

of the State, and appealed to all within the common- 
wealth to put forth their utmost endeavor to secure, 
as speedily as possible, a reign of law and order, and 
commanded all State troops called out by his predecessor. 
Governor Jackson, to lay down their arms and return 
to their homes, promising them protection.^ But a 
few days later ^ he found it necessary, in order to sup- 
press marauding and violence, to call for forty-two 
thousand volunteers, infantry and cavalry. The Gov- 
ernor, while conservative in character, and an ardent 
lover of peace, was forced for the public good to put 
down anarchy by the strong hand of the armed militia 
of the State. 

But there was another series of interesting events 
running parallel with the foregoing. During the month 
of July, our fleeing Governor and Lieutenant-Governor 
were among their political friends in the Southern Con- 
federacy. They visited Richmond and took counsel 
with Jefferson Davis. The Lieutenant-Governor hav- 
ing returned to New Madrid, on the 31st of July, 
while the Convention in session at Jefferson City was 
choosing provisional State officers, issued a procla- 
mation as " acting Governor of Missouri, in the tem- 
porary absence of Governor Jackson," eulogizing the 
President of the Southern Confederacy, welcoming to 
the State the Confederate General Pillow with his rebel 
army, declaring that in view of the rebellion in St. 
Louis against Missouri, and the war of the United States 
upon her, "she is, and of right ought to be, a sovereign, 
free, and independent State." He also called upon 
Brigadier-General Thompson, commanding the Missouri 
State Guards of the district that included New Madrid, 

» Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. II, D. of E., p. 53, Doc. 156, p. 472. 
* August 24th, Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. Ill, Doc, p. 5. 



230 A Border City in the Civil War 

to join hands with General Pillow in his beneficent work 
of protecting "the lives and property of the citizens." 
That he referred only to citizens in full sympathy with 
secession was made clear by Thompson's proclamation 
on the following day. This proclamation, which, in 
bombast, stands without a peer among all written mani- 
festoes of military commanders, was issued on the same 
day of the inauguration at the State capital of the pro- 
visional Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, and of 
Fremont's river campaign to Cairo and New Madrid. 
Thus strange and stirring events overlapped each other. 
Antagonistic proclamations from men of diametrically 
opposite views met and clashed. To those uncertain of 
their ground the din was bewildering. But amid the 
confusion of these discordant appeals, Thompson's 
turgid screed greatly amused all in whom there was 
even the smallest grain of humor. I remember how 
companies of men in our city, irrespective of their 
political sympathies, casually thrown together, read it 
to each other amid peals of laughter. A single extract 
from it cannot fail to amuse those of this generation 
and justify our comment upon it. 

" Come now, strike while the iron is hot! Our enemies 
are whipped in Virginia. They have been whipped in 
Missouri. General Hardee advances in the centre, 
General Pillow on the right, and General McCulloch 
on the left, with twenty thousand brave Southern 
hearts to our aid. So leave your plows in the furrow, 
and your oxen in the yoke, and rush like a tornado 
upon our invaders and foes, to sweep them from the 
face of the earth, or force them from the soil of our 
State! Brave sons of the Ninth District, come and join 
us! We have plenty of ammunition and the cattle on 



Extraordinary Acts 231 

ten thousand hills are ours. We have forty thousand 
Belgian muskets coming; but bring your guns and 
muskets with you, if you have them; if not come with- 
out them. We will strike our foes like a Southern thun- 
derbolt, and soon our camp-fires will illuminate the 
Meramec and Missouri. Come, turn out! ^ 

" Jeff. Thompson, 
" Brigadier-General Commanding J' 

But the itinerant Governor, whose office had been 
declared vacant by our sovereign Convention while 
he was engaged in earnest consultation with the rebel 
authorities at Richmond, soon after returned, and, 
on August 5th, inflicted upon a distracted common- 
wealth another proclamation, in which he supplemented 
and confirmed that issued by the defunct Lieutenant- 
Governor on the 31st of July. He declared Missouri 
independent of the government of the United States, 
and that all relations hitherto existing between the two 
governments were dissolved.^ He did this of course 
without a shred of authority. He was no longer Governor; 
but even if there had been a reasonable doubt that the 
Convention had the power to declare his office vacant, 
as Governor he had no constitutional power to dissolve 
the relations existing between the Federal government 
and the State over which he was called to preside; 
especially since the sovereign Convention, which he 
and his legislature called into existence, had voted down 
all propositions for the secession of Missouri; and even 
his subservient legislature, whose seats, in July, had 
been declared vacant by the same Convention, did not 
adopt an ordinance of secession until November 2d, 

'Americau Cyclopaedia, 1861. 

2 Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. II, D. of E., p. 66, Doc. 163, p. 479. 



232 A Border City in the Civil War 

almost three months after the peripatetic Governor had 
proclaimed at New Madrid that the secession of the 
State was an accomplished fact. And this belated ordi- 
nance of secession was passed at Neosho, a small mining 
town in the extreme southwestern part of the State, 
near the border of Arkansas, where the defunct legis- 
lature, that assumed such extraordinary powers, found 
itself without a quorum, and secured one only by 
arbitrarily padding out its number by proxies. So in 
August, Missouri was declared by an officeless Governor 
to be out of the Union; then as late as November an 
unseated legislature, without a quorum, voted the 
secession of the State from the Union. What was 
already out, according to the defunct Governor, was 
solemnly voted out by his defunct legislature. The 
secession State government manifestly died hard. Even 
its expiring spasms were comical. Its proclamations 
and legislative acts were wild and futile. Rather than 
to have committed such folly it would have been better 
" to be a dog, and bay the moon." And all the loyal of 
Missouri looked on and laughed. 

But the action of our officeless Governor flowed out 
of his agreement with the Confederate authorities at 
Richmond. Three days after Jackson declared the 
sovereign independence of Missouri, the Confederate 
Congress authorized Jefferson Davis to raise troops in 
Missouri for the Southern army, and to establish re- 
cruiting stations to faciUtate this work; and on the 
19th of August voted to admit Missouri into the 
Southern Confederacy, when, by her legally constituted 
authority, — the authority being the overturned State 
government, — she shall have ratified the constitu- 
tion of the Confederate States.-^ This act of the Con- 



on or the Conrederate States.^ Ihi 
» Moore's Keb. Kec, Vol. II, D. of E., p. 70. 



Extraordinary Acts 233 

federate Congress was duly approved by President 
Davis.^ 

This hostile legislation at Richmond was followed 
by a proclamation of General Price at Springfield, on 
the 21st, declaring all Missouri Home Guards enemies 
of the Southern Confederacy, and that they would be 
treated as such. What the general proclaimed was un- 
questionably true, what he threatened was expected. 
However, all that transpired at Richmond we did not at 
that time know fully. We got some inkling of it; just 
enough to stimulate our imaginations, and to spur us to 
greater vigilance and to unremitting effort to keep 
Missouri true to the general government. We well 
knew that the seceded States would do their utmost 
to secure her for the Confederacy; that St. Louis was 
the key of the situation; that it was the objective point 
of every movement of the State Guards,^ and of every 
invading army from the South, and that our position 
would not be secure until the battle for the Union had 
been fought to a finish. Hence all military movements 
within our borders, all armed conflicts great and small, 
all secret plottings of the disloyal, all acts of the Conven- 
tion or of the defunct legislature, all proclamations, 
hostile or friendly, demanded and received our unre- 
mitting, earnest attention. By midsummer of 1861, 
all loyal citizens of St. Louis had fully made up their 
minds that adhesion to the Union, and security in it, 
were to be purchased only by the price of eternal vig- 
ilance. 

1 p. 74. 

^ The State Guards were armed Secessionists, the Home Guards 
armed Unionists. 



CHAPTER XVI 

HALLECK AND HIS MANIFESTOES 

Major - General Halleck, Fremont's successor, 
appeared among us on November 18th, 1861.^ He was 
already famous as the author of " Elements of Military Art 
and Science." He was forty-six years old, in the prime 
of life, in perfect health, and full of vigor. As he peered 
at us out of his large black eyes underneath dark heavy 
eyebrows, and a high, massive forehead, he looked 
wondrous wise. His soldierly bearing, without ostenta- 
tion, gave us confidence in him as a safe and able leader; 
nor did he as an administrator disappoint our expecta- 
tions. 

He seemed intuitively and clearly to grasp the situa- 
tion. He took right hold of his work and did it with a 
will. He soon brought order out of chaos. To lighten 
his burden and to secure greater thoroughness in ad- 
ministration, together with promptness and effectiveness 
in military movements, Kansas was separated from 
his department and put under the command of Major- 
General Hunter. 

First of all, without neglecting for a moment the 
movements of the amiy of Price in the State, he began to 
disentangle the military snarl in and about St. Louis. 
One after another, the different divisions of Fremont's 

» W. R. S. 1, Vol. VIII, p. 369. 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 235 

army were returning from their bootless campaign. 
There was great confusion. All seemed to be at cross- 
purposes. Each subordinate commander, uncertain 
as to his duty, was anxiously awaiting orders. But 
General Halleck, amid the din of conflicting interests 
from various quarters demanding his immediate atten- 
tion, never for a moment lost h^ head. With a masterful 
hand he reduced to system what, at first blush, seemed 
an inextricable mass of antagonistic interests. In a 
comparatively short time every imperative call upon 
him had been fully met, every subordinate officer had 
found his place, learned his duties and was efficiently 
doing them. The internal affairs of his department were 
at last running as smoothly as the most critical could 
reasonably expect. 

As soon as General Halleck had put things to rights 
in his military household, he broke up the different 
secret rendezvous in St. Louis, where the secessionists 
met to plot against the government, where they stowed 
their war material, and clandestinely drilled that they 
might be prepared for open conflict, which they still 
hoped would soon be precipitated. He did this impor- 
tant work with such downright thoroughness, that so 
far as could be seen he put an end to these secret rebel 
gatherings. 

He also determined to sustain with all the power at his 
command the enactments of the sovereign Convention, 
now the only legislative body of the State. During the 
preceding month the Convention had once more reas- 
sembled in St. Louis and enacted weighty laws to safe- 
guard loyal Missouri. Among other important measures, 
it prescribed an oath of allegiance to the United States 
to be taken by all municipal and State officers under 
pain of deposition. 



236 A Border City in the Civil War 

The general did not permit this requirement to go 
miheeded. He insisted that all who were amenable to 
this law should obey it. So from time to time peremp- 
tory orders were sent out from his headquarters, com- 
manding all who had been remiss in subscribing to the 
oath to take it at once or vacate their places. He 
expressly enjoined the mayor of St. Louis to compel 
all city officers to take the prescribed oath, and the 
provost-marshal general to arrest all State officers who 
had from any cause failed to subscribe to it.^ As late as 
January 26th, 1862, he ordered all officers of the St. 
Louis Mercantile Library Association, and of the St. 
Louis Chambers of Commerce to take the oath before 
the provost marshal within ten days, or quit their 
posts. On February 4th, he issued a similar order, which 
was a drag-net, in which he tried to catch every disloyal 
official in Missouri, of whatever grade. He decisively 
commanded all officials of the University of Missouri, 
all presidents and directors of railroads, all quarter- 
masters, clerks and agents in the service of the United 
States to subscribe to the oath or immediately to resign 
their offices.^ And at last he evidently considered even 
this to be inadequate, since, a month later, he ordered 
all licensed attorneys, counsellors-at-law and proctors, 
and all jurors to take the oath or at once cease to exer- 
cise their public functions;^ and to make the work 
complete in every detail, to unearth all rebels in hiding, 
he ordered every voter in Missouri to take the oath of 
allegiance to the United States on pain of disfranchise- 
ment.^ Thus did this Union general, with his numerous 

> Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 108. Also W. R. S. 1, 
Vol. VIII, p. 414. 

2 Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. IV, D. of E., p. 18, Doc, p. 129. 
5 W. R. S. 1, Vol. VIII, pp. 586-687, p. 832. 
*Pp. 657, 648. 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 237 

drastic orders, endeavor to uncover every disloyal man 
in our commonwealth. Was it wise? He thought it was, 
else he would not have done it. 

But we have not enumerated a tithe of his swarming 
manifestoes. We soon concluded that his distinguishing 
characteristic was orders. Orders, orders came in volleys 
from his headquarters. He was evidently earnestly 
endeavoring to find out who, in his military department, 
were for the Union and who were against it. His 
orders were trumpet-calls to every man to take his 
stand openly and show his colors. He wished to ascer- 
tain who were the enemies of the Union that he might 
justly deal with them. When, therefore, by the testimony 
of reliable witnesses, and by his own daily observation, 
he had gotten a clear view of the state of things that 
confronted him, the disloyal began to feel the grip of 
his iron hand. He ordered the arrest of occupants of 
carriages carrying rebel flags, and the confiscation of the 
carriages.^ Rebel flags from all such vehicles dis- 
appeared as by magic. Their owners of course had not 
met with any change of heart, but in order to save 
their personal property concluded to conduct themselves 
with outward decency and civility in a loyal city. 

The general directed another manifesto against the 
fair sex, who, having the courage of their convictions, 
and relying on the courtesy and gallantry universally 
shown in our country to women, had vauntingly carried 
the Confederate flag on their persons, and at times 
had waved it to their rebel friends, who were confined 
in the Gratiot Street prison. He ordered their arrest. 
Some of them were apprehended and imprisoned. One, 
who had been a prominent worker in my own church and 
congregation, having been found guilty of conveying 

» Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. IV, Doc, p. 52. 



238 A Border City in the Civil War 

important information to the enemy, was banished from 
the city and State. Having acted the part of a spy, her 
punishment was exceedingly mild. If a man had 
committed the same crime he would have been shot or 
hung. In fact General Halleck had already ordered 
that all persons found within the Federal lines, giving aid 
to the rebels, be treated as spies, arrested and shot. 
But previous good character and deference to sex saved 
the guilty woman from a fate so dire. 

Other women of high social position, whose homes 
were outside the city in the State, had fled from the 
disorder and violence of their neighborhoods to St. Louis 
for safety. Generously protected within our gates 
and by our army, some of them hatched and executed 
schemes to aid the Southern Confederacy, to overturn 
the very government under whose sheltering wings 
they were abiding in security. While the disloyal deeds 
of many of them remained undiscovered, and they 
continued during the whole period of the war to dwell 
unmolested under the flag that they hated and clandes- 
tinely plotted to destroy, others, betrayed by their 
over-bold acts of disloyalty, were by our general re- 
morselessly banished from our city. He sent them back 
to their homes in the State, around which the swirling 
tides of war still swept. Some prominent loyal men 
pleaded for them, but pleaded in vain. The general 
unflinchingly did his duty as he saw it. 

Nor did the disloyal press elude his eye, or escape his 
retributive hand. By his direction the provost-marshal 
general ordered all newspapers throughout the State to 
furnish him a copy of each issue. The penalty for any 
failure to obey this drastic mandate was suppression 
or confiscation. 

Moreover, every important military movement within 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 239 

the bounds of his department received his thoughtful 
critical attention. At this time, General Price had 
returned to the State and was leading his army north- 
ward. He wished to destroy the Hannibal and St. 
Joseph Railroad, and so cut off communication between 
that part of the State and St. Louis. He also desired 
to secure recruits for his depleted ranks from the north- 
ern counties, especially notorious for their disloyalty. 
Many of the people of that region hailed his approach 
and flocked to his standard. But aside from those who 
enlisted in his army there were various companies of 
secessionists, that enthusiastically entered into the work 
of destroying the railroad. At several different points 
they tore up the tracks, bent the rails, burned depots and 
bridges, and demolished telegraph-poles. This was a 
serious blow to us, and men in our city were anxiously 
asking to what this would lead. But General Halleck 
was equal to the situation. He regarded such irrespon- 
sible bands of rebels, engaged in the wanton destruction 
of public property, as mere outlaws, having no claim to 
the immunities accorded to regularly enlisted soldiers. 
To meet the exigency he ordered that these lawless 
bridge-burners be forthwith arrested and shot. Scores 
of them were apprehended; the ringleaders were court- 
martialed, condemned to be shot, and were long kept in 
prison awaiting the execution of the sentence, which 
was afterwards commuted to a period of hard labor. 

He also followed up the first manifesto by a second, 
in which he ordered that, where railroad property had 
been destroyed, the commanding officer nearest to the 
scene of devastation should impress the slaves of all 
secessionists in that neighborhood, and, if need be, 
also the owners of them, and compel them to do all the 
menial work required in repairing the damage that had 



240 A Border City in the Civil War 

been done. This order was faithfully carried out, and 
it put an end to the destruction of railroad property 
in that part of the State. It was a great comfort to us 
in St. Louis to see that the orders of our general were 
not mere fulminations, but the immediate precursors 
of deeds; that they hit hard the things aimed at. 

But while he put a stop to the destruction of railroad 
property, he also organized an efTective military cam- 
paign before which the ever cautious Price retreated, 
with his re-enforced army, into the southwest part of the 
State and finally into Arkansas. 

But such a statement of the grand result of this cam- 
paign gives no adequate idea of the general condition 
of the State at that time. There was great confusion 
throughout all our borders. Confederate troops, coming 
up from Arkansas, invaded at different points our sacred, 
sovereign soil. They came to strengthen the hands of 
the disloyal. Federal soldiers, in detached bands, 
were endeavoring to defend the loyal. There was a 
skirmish here, a conflict there. State Guards and Home 
Guards were in frequent collision. Guerrillas, riding 
swiftly, suddenly struck unsuspecting neighborhoods 
and left behind them dying men and flaming dwellings. 
Bushwhackers, hiding in thickets or behind stone walls, 
coolly shot down many of the best men of our State. 
Small towns often changed hands, one week controlled 
by Confederates, the next by Federals. Halleck, as 
well as he could, kept all his subordinate officers, in these 
harried and disordered districts, under his eye. His 
orders addressed to them flew thick and fast. 

These military movements, that we have briefly 
noted, were of vast importance to us. Our destiny hung 
upon the turn that they took. Hence they gave us 
much anxious thought. But while they were transpiring, 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 241 

we were stirred up by startling and significant events 
within our gates. Foremost among the suggestive inci- 
dents that agitated our city was the hand that Halleck 
took in the negro question. But unhke his predecessor 
in command, he kept, in what he did, strictly within the 
limits of his authority as a military officer. 

Sixteen fugitive slaves had been thrown into the 
county jail. They were shut up there, not because they 
had committed crime, but because that prison was a 
convenient place to keep securely such lively property, 
— property that did some thinking, had some ardent 
desires for freedom, and was blessed with legs. In the 
latter part of December, 1861, these slaves were adver- 
tised for sale, under State laws. The general, satisfied 
that they were the property of rebels, ordered the 
provost marshal to take them from jail, turn them 
over to the chief quartermaster, who was instructed 
to put them to work for the Federal government.^ The 
general, however, declared that by his order he did not 
contravene any civil enactment, by which they might be 
legally turned over to their masters. Nevertheless, to 
their great joy, his move on their behalf made them 
virtually free. They became the servants of Uncle Sam, 
a kind and gracious master that fully recognized their 
manhood. This unexpected act of our general set wag- 
ging the tongues of both secessionists and Unionists, the 
former sharply condemning, the latter warmly applaud- 
ing. There was very bitter war, waged by tongues on the 
streets, in the marts of trade and in the parlor, as well 
as with Minie balls, solid shot and shell in the field. 

But without respect to its chronological position 
among the manifestoes of our general, we have reserved 
one for more extended comment. It was called forth 

1 Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 121. 



242 A Border City in the Civil War 

by events intensely interesting and profoundly signifi- 
cant. We noted in a preceding chapter, that when 
the army of Fremont, after his removal from its com- 
mand, fell back from Springfield upon St. Louis, there 
followed in its train a motley multitude of refugees 
that, as best they cotild, found shelter and care within 
our city. But their number became so great that their 
wants could not be adequately met by private charity. 
To keep them from starvation. General Halleck supplied 
many of them with army rations. Still, such continued 
use of government stores was of doubtful propriety. 
In determining his duty in a matter so grave, he could 
not but reflect that the fruitful cause of all the misery 
of this unhoused and hungry throng was the rebellion 
against the government of the United States, and that 
many of the wealthiest citizens of St. Louis were clan- 
destinely doing what they could to aid this revolt 
against Federal authority. To his mind they were 
chiefly responsible for the inflocking of these forlorn 
and ragged crowds. He therefore decided that they 
must be compelled to do their part in relieving the 
wretchedness which they had helped, and were still 
helping to produce. He wished in carrying out his 
purpose to avoid if possible all injustice. So he sought 
for trustworthy information concerning well-to-do seces- 
sion households. When he had secured it and felt that 
the way was clear for intelligent action, perhaps falling 
back for precedent on the searches and seizures of his 
predecessor, he issued an order assessing the rich seces- 
sionists of the city ten thousand dollars for the support 
of the refugees that had fled for safety to us from the 
south and west.^ 

'Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 103. Also W. R. S. 1, 
Vol. VIU, pp. 431, 490. 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 243 

No act of any commander, stationed at St. Louis 
during the war, created more excitement than this. 
At first both the loyal and disloyal were amazed. Then 
vengeful resentment and bitterness took possession of 
the assessed. The order fell chiefly on the "first fami- 
lies," the bon ton of Southern society, in our city; and 
was doubly offensive since it both galled their pride 
and struck at their devotion to the Southern Confederacy. 
Nevertheless they hardly ventured to protest above 
their breath, lest their words might justify the general's 
order. Most of them having the saving grace of common 
sense, and regarding discretion as the better part of 
valor, with compressed and dumb lips quietly paid their 
assessments. If any hot denunciation clamored for 
utterance, it was temporarily suppressed and kept for 
secret fulmination under their own rooftrees. When, 
however, any one, resenting the exaction, refused to 
pay his assessment, a sufficient amount of his property 
to meet this extraordinary military tax was promptly 
confiscated, and a penalty of twenty-five per cent, was 
added to the original levy. Mr. Engler, whose tax had 
been collected in this manner, undertook to recover 
his confiscated goods through the civil court by a writ of 
replevin, and was at once apprehended and sent beyond 
the lines of the Union army,^ where he had leisure to 
reflect on the folly of deliberately butting against 
martial law. 

Whatever may now be thought of General Halleck's 
procedure in forcing men to alleviate the misery that 
they had helped to produce, at the time by far the larger 
part of the Unionists of our city heartily sustained it, 
and it did much toward solving the problem of feeding 

* Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. IV, D. of E., p. 16. 
W. R. S. 2, Vol. I, p. 150. 



244 A Border City in the Civil War 

the multitude of refugees among us; for, by army 
rations, spontaneous private charity, and enforced 
assessments, all refugees that were poor, and hungry, 
and shelterless, were fairly well provided for. 

But we were constantly agitated by events outside 
our gates as well as within. During 1861 and the first 
three months of 1862, there were fully seventy armed 
conflicts in Missouri. We called them battles then, 
although only four or five of them really attained to that 
dignity. And we all knew that St. Louis was the object 
for which hostile forces were fighting. Although we held 
the city, the enemy was bending all his energies to snatch 
it from us. Who at last should permanently hold the 
prize none could yet determine. 

But our volunteer army grew apace. Early in 1862 
an aggressive campaign was planned against the enemy 
in the southwest. A force of over ten thousand well- 
armed men under the immediate command of General 
Samuel Ryan Curtis, swept Price and his army from our 
State; and at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, met and defeated 
the combined forces of Van Dorn, Price, McCulloch 
and Pike, the last commanding a brigade of Indians, 

But to the south of us lay a greater peril than that in 
northwestern Arkansas. The Confederates had seized, 
and were tenaciously holding, the Tennessee, Cumberland 
and Mississippi Rivers, the main arteries of our southern 
trade. So long as these highways of commerce were ob- 
structed, the business of our city languished. More- 
over, if the forces of the enemy were permitted to gather 
unmolested on these water-courses, they would soon 
be able to march against us in battle array. To meet 
this impending danger, to make such an invasion im- 
practicable, if not impossible, by the order of General 
Halleck an army was rapidly gathered on the Mississippi 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 245 

above Columbus, Kentucky. General Grant had been 
fortunately ordered to organize, drill, and lead these 
troops. To join his command many soldiers were sent 
by Halleck from the encampments in and around St. 
Louis. I saw one morning a regiment of stalwart men 
from Indiana, marching with elastic step down Pine 
Street to the levee, their every movement instinct with 
exuberant life, and singing, in clear strong tones, 

" John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave ; 
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave ; 
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave ; 

His soul is marching on ! 
Glory, halle - hallelujah I Glory, halle - hallelujah I 

Glory, halle - hallelujah ! 

His soul is marching on." 

That was about the middle of January, 1862. That 
famous war song may have been sung before in our 
city, but this was the first time that I had heard it. It 
thrilled me through and through. That to me was an 
ecstatic moment. So it evidently was to the crowd that 
lined the street. They looked on as if entranced. Tears 
started in many eyes, and when the song, so prophetic 
of triumph, ended, the throng burst out into rapturous, 
ringing cheers. And the patriots who sang those inspir- 
ing words were on their way to swell the ranks of Grant's 
army. Into the souls of all that heard them on that 
day came the assurance of victory. 

The last of January, General Grant led his army 
southward. He was supported by a fleet of gunboats 
under the command of Commodore Foote. The move- 
ment was without ado, unexpected by the enemy, and 
effective. On February 6th, Fort Henry on the Ten- 
nessee River was captured by the gunboats. On the 
12th, the general led his army across the country and, 



246 A Border City in the Civil War 

with considerable fighting during the afternoon, invested 
Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. On the next 
day, while waiting for the arrival of the gunboats, 
there was no general attack, but constant skirmishing. 
On the 14th, the enemy repulsed the gunboats and 
attacked the investing army. A furious battle ensued, 
lasting several hours. The right wing of Grant's army 
was at first driven back. The report reached us that our 
troops were repulsed, and we thought that the campaign 
so brilliantly begun had failed. We did not then know 
that at last a general had appeared who regarded war 
as a serious business, which at all hazards must be 
relentlessly prosecuted to a successful issue; who if he 
did not conquer on the first day, fought the next, and 
if he did not succeed on the second day, only waited for 
the dawn of the third that he might renew the conflict. 
That third day came at Fort Donelson. Grant and his 
troops, in spite of sleet and hail and snow that all night 
had pitilessly beat upon their tentless heads, were 
ready for the fray. But the enemy, though sheltered 
behind breastworks, felt that they could no longer 
withstand the onslaughts of that aggressive host, whom 
neither storms of ice nor showers of bullets could daunt. 
Some in the beleaguered fort, led by their faint-hearted 
commanders, had slipped away under the cover of night, 
and by flight reached places of safety. At dawn 
General Buckner, to whom had been left the responsi- 
bility of surrendering, proposed that commissioners be 
appointed to agree upon terms of capitulation of the 
forces under his command, and received from Grant 
the famous reply, now familiar to every schoolboy, 
" No terms, except unconditional and immediate surren- 
der, can be accepted. I propose to move immediately 
on your works." When the telegraph flashed to us 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 247 

those immortal words every loyal heart in our city 
overflowed with delight. One said to another: '* We 
have at last an able general who means business." 

On the following day, February 17th, the news of the 
surrender came. More than fourteen thousand prisoners, 
with forty pieces of artillery, thousands of small arras 
and large quantities of commissary stores had been 
taken, and the Union troops occupied the fort. In 
spontaneous celebration of these glad tidings from all 
the encampments around our city came the roar of can- 
non; brass bands played "The Star-Spangled Banner" 
and " Yankee Doodle; " the Union Merchants Exchange 
laid aside all business and sang patriotic songs; large 
companies of Unionists, drawn together by some irre- 
sistible impulse, in the stores, in the market, on the 
streets, congratulated each other, laughed, clapped 
their hands and stamped their feet in glee. It was an 
hour of triumph; and the Missouri Democrat issued in 
hot haste an extra, heading its column with " Te Deum." 
It thus caught and expressed the sentiment then domi- 
nant in all loyal hearts, that of thanksgiving and praise 
to God, who presides over and directs the affairs of 
nations and in wisdom withholds or grants victories to 
armies. But our secession neighbors were mute. What 
gave us joy, gave them pain. At such times we always 
felt it to be sad that we were so divided. Both of us 
could not be right. That which separated us was being 
decided by the dread arbitrament of battle, and the 
thought began to penetrate the minds of the more con- 
siderate of the disloyal that after all the Federal govern- 
ment might be able to subdue the rebellion; a notion 
which, at the beginning of the war, they rejected with 
ineffable contempt. 

The foUowing Saturday was Washington's birthday. 



248 A Border City in the Civil War 

All the Unionists of the city were in fit mood for its 
celebration. The victories both in the southwest and 
south filled them with unbounded satisfaction. One of 
the morning papers accurately reflected their state of 
mind by declaring that " the last vestige of military 
insurrection had been swept away." So, at all events, 
it seemed just then. The curtain of the future for the 
moment graciously hid from view the perils that still 
awaited us. So on that 22d of February our political 
horizon was bright. Clouds were soon to arise; but on 
that glad day we saw none of them. Our patriotism 
was at white heat. Nothing could repress it; it flamed 
out. Early in the day it found devout expression. At 
nine o'clock in the morning, the Unionists flocked into 
the First Presbyterian Church, and filled it to overflow- 
ing. The ablest Protestant pastors of the city were 
there. We sang patriotic hymns. We read the Scrip- 
tures together. We prayed for wisdom and strength 
that we might do our delicate and difficult duties wisely 
and courageously. A brother read to us significant 
portions of Washington's farewell address. We then 
stimulated each other by earnest speeches to strive on 
for the maintenance of the Union. So at the beginning 
of our festivities we were made strong by entering into 
fellowship with God. 

Before noon a mammoth procession was formed. 
Many rode in carriages, a great company on horseback, 
four abreast, and a host marched on foot. Every vehicle, 
every horse, and every person was decorated with, or 
carried, the Stars and Stripes. There were many bands 
of music. Regiments of soldiers were in the procession, 
marching to patriotic nmsic, discoursed not only by 
brass bands, but also by fife and drum. It took two 
and a half hours for the procession to pass any given 



Halleck and His Manifestoes 249 

point. And as we marched, from different directions 
came the boom of cannon, and the houses all along our 
route were decked with flags and with red, white and 
blue bunting intertwined, while crowds of the loyal on 
either side the street shouted for the Union and sang 
war songs. Again and again we were greeted with, 

" The Union forever, hurrah ! boys, hurrah ! 
Down with the traitor, up with the star ; 
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again, 
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom." 

While this procession was a hearty, spontaneous 
outburst of patriotism, those who planned it intended 
to make as profound an impression as possible on the 
disloyal of the city. They wished to show them that 
no party among us adverse to the Federal government 
could hereafter have any reasonable hope of withstand- 
ing this mighty tide of Unionism, which was daily rising 
higher and had already become resistless. In this 
I was in full tide of sympathy with my fellow Unionists. 
Accompanied by a neighboring pastor, I rode a horse 
over the whole route of that famous procession, with 
a star-spangled banner on my horse's head, another on 
the lapel of my coat, and a third in my hand. Nor was 
I singular in this; very many others did the same. As 
we rode the Christian pastor at my side said: " Is not 
this glorious? Why, you can see the shell crack and the 
light stream in." 

Sunday evening, April 6th, I was greatly surprised 
and delighted to see my old mathematical teacher, 
Major-General Quinby, come into church. It was a joy 
once more to look into his genial face and to feel the warm 
grasp of his hand. He seemed to me to have appeared 
just in the nick of time. For many days I had been very 



250 A Border City in the Civil War 

anxious to enlist in the army, and here, thought I, is 
my chance to talk the whole matter over with one that 
knows me well, and can appreciate my aspirations. 
When I made known to him my desire, he said at once 
that I could have a place on his staff, but thought that I 
ought not to quit my post at St. Louis. He felt quite 
sure that I could do the country more good by remaining 
there than by becoming a soldier in the field. Others 
urged upon me the same view of the case; and I reluc- 
tantly abandoned my purpose of enlisting, although I 
had had for many weeks a burning desire to be in the 
fight at the front. 

On the 9th of April I met General Quinby at the levee, 
as he was taking a steamer to go down the Mississippi. 
He was with General Halleck, with whom I conversed, 
and with whom I was most favorably impressed. While 
few fully approved of all his measures, he had been a 
godsend to the Unionists of the city. He had done his 
duty faithfully and fearlessly. He had held an extremely 
difficult position. He had been compelled at times to 
listen to many diverse opinions, yet had never been con- 
fused as to what he deemed wise and just. His decisions 
had been clear. He had carried them out promptly 
and thoroughly. He had, to be sure, unwittingly sown 
dragon's teeth whose harvest tormented some of his 
successors in command; but if he had shown as much 
wisdom in the field as he did in our cit}^ and State, he 
would have made himself immortal. But when he went 
down the river to take personal command of the army, 
he apparently left his wisdom behind him. 



CHAPTER XVII 

REFUGEES 

In the preceding chapter we pointed out the manner 
in which General Halleck, by forced assessments, com- 
pelled the more wealthy of the disloyal of St. Louis to 
assist in caring for the refugees among us. This suggests 
our varied experiences in dealing with these unfor- 
tunates that, during the whole period of the war, came 
flocking in upon us, not only from Missouri, but also 
from regions farther south. When General Grant, by 
his masterful campaign, had swept all obstructions 
from the Mississippi River, and opened up western 
Kentucky, western Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, 
Arkansas, and northern Texas, poor whites and negroes, 
freed by the onward march of our victorious army, 
fled, in ever-increasing numbers, from all that con- 
quered territory, to our city. They came on govern- 
ment transports, came by boat-loads, sent by Union 
generals because they had become a serious impediment 
to military movements; they came also in wagons and 
carts of wonderful make, and in large numbers on foot. 
St. Louis was for them a city of refuge. 

But to set forth clearly the problem that was thrust 
upon us by their coming, we must separate the hetero- 
geneous multitude that appealed to us for charity into 
homogeneous classes. We certainly cannot justly af- 
firm the same things of them all. Here, as elsewhere 
in society, we found different and interesting types. 



252 A Border City in the Civil War 

First of all there were some loyal white refugees. 
While most of these were from the western and interior 
counties of our own State, a few came from States farther 
south. They fled from their homes, which had been 
made unsafe by rebel guerrillas and bushwhackers. 
So far as possible they had converted their property 
into money, which they brought with them. They came 
to stay. Some of them purchased residences in St. 
Louis. Many of them, by the stern logic of war, had 
become emancipationists, while they retained some 
of their old prejudices. The notion that everything 
vile lurked under the harmless word, abolitionist, had 
been woven into the very tissue of their being. They 
persistently believed that there were at least three 
devils in the North and East : an editorial devil, Horace 
Greeley; a clerical devil, Henry Ward Beecher; and 
a lecturing devil, Wendell Phillips. But war by its 
victories and defeats gradually illuminated their minds. 
The horns and hoofs of these imaginary devils slowly 
faded from their vision. And a few years after the 
surrender at Appomattox, many of these very men by 
tongue and ballot endeavored to make the editorial 
devil President of the United States. 

But there was a still larger number of rebel refugees. 
They were usually found in knots at boarding-houses 
kept by Southern sympathizers. They were always 
hilarious when the rebel army was victorious, and 
crestfallen when it suffered defeat. Most of them had 
sufficient means, snatched from the ravages of war, to 
sustain them in comfort. A few of them were rich. 
For the most part they were permitted to live in peace 
among us, securely shielded by the government that 
they sought to overthrow. Occasionally, they were 
found aiding those in arms against the United States, 



Refugees 253 

and a few of them, as we have already noted, were 
arrested and sent beyond the hnes of the Federal army. 

But by far the most numerous class of refugees were 
poor and wretched beyond description. They entered 
St. Louis in rags, often hatless and shoeless, sallow, lean, 
half-starved, unkempt. Very many of them were 
women and children in pitiable plight, half naked, 
shivering, penniless, dispirited. Most of them professed 
to be loyal. Their husbands and fathers had been 
killed because they were Union men. Some of them 
were the wives and children of Union volunteer soldiers 
from Arkansas; on that account the rebels drove them 
from their homes. Moreover, the Confederates, to a 
considerable extent, recruited their armies from the 
poor whites, whose families they left to find their way 
into the Union lines. But many that came were dazed. 
They hardly knew why the war was being waged. 
Whether they were loyal or disloyal it would have 
puzzled the most astute to find out. Pinching want 
had driven them from their comfortless dwellings in 
the South. Their main quest was bread. 

But while in tatters and gaunt with hunger, most of 
them were utterly unwilling to work. They regarded 
manual labor as a disgrace. They had been taught in 
the school of slavery that honest toil was servile and 
ignoble. The notion quite generally prevailed among 
them that since they had fled from rebeldom, the 
government was under obligation to feed and clothe 
them, while they sat down in idleness and glumly 
received its gifts. What charity added to government 
supplies they thoughtlessly consumed, and then 
stretched out empty, thriftless hands for more. 

An incident or two will present in concrete form 
their aristocratic notions concerning labor. James 



254 A Border City in the Civil War 

E. Yeatman, President of the Western Sanitary 
Commission, became deeply interested in a girl of 
sixteen, belonging to a refugee family from Arkansas. 
With considerable personal effort he secured for her the 
position of nurse-girl in a household where her highest 
good, in every way, would have been sought. Rejoicing 
in doing a benevolent deed, though a very busy man, 
with great responsibilities weighing on mind and heart, 
he drove more than two miles to apprise her mother of 
his success. The family were living on government 
rations, and every article of their dress showed their 
extreme poverty; but the mother met this offer of a 
place for her half-starved child by exclaiming: ''Wat, 
my darter a sarvant and work like a niggah! no, sah! 
she'll rot fust! " "Very well, madam," with righteous 
indignation replied Mr. Yeatman, "let her rot; " and 
jumping into his buggy, drove hurriedly back to his 
office in the city. 

I visited a family of this class at the Virginia Hotel, 
an old hostelry, which was used as an asylum for 
freedmen and white refugees. The room adjoining 
one occupied by a family of refugees had been assigned 
to a negro. These refugees were clothed in rags and 
were barefooted. The unkempt hair of the wife and 
mother was a mass of matted tangles. In their cheer- 
less apartment there was neither stove nor bed. They 
slept on straw and ate from the hand of charity. While 
I was taking in the situation and speaking an 
encouraging word, a benevolent lady stepped in to 
relieve their pressing wants, but, strange to tell, found 
their pride sorely mortified, not by their personal appear- 
ance nor by the litter and filth in which they were living, 
but because there was a negro in the next room. The 
mother voiced the complaint of that poverty-stricken 



Refugees 255 

household, by saying, in a peculiar drawl: "I say now, 
we'uns doan think that ah sooperintend ort to put that 
niggah in thah; we'uns doan like that ah purty wal." 

I stepped into the adjoining apartment that I might 
see what had so offended these aristocratic paupers, 
and found that the negro, a contraband or fugitive 
from bondage, had entered his room at the same time 
that the white refugees had entered theirs. But he 
had found an old broom and had swept his room, an 
old stove and had put it up; had gathered some soft 
coal to burn in it; had gotten somewhere a rickety bed- 
stead and set it up and had put on it a tick filled with 
straw. He had procured a wash-basin, a cracked looking- 
glass, and something to eat. While his room was bare 
and poor enough, he had made it look in some measure 
homelike. At all events he greatly distanced his squalid 
white neighbors, who felt degraded by his presence. 

Most of the white refugees were illiterates. Their 
ignorance was so dense that we are in no danger of 
exaggerating it. I once sat down by the side of a sick 
boy of this class, who lay on a dirty blanket spread on 
the floor. His mother, also ill, lay near him. She was 
afraid that he would die. They had fled from Bates- 
ville, Arkansas, and exposure to cold and rain, while 
on their journey, had brought on fever. She could not 
read and knew very little of the world outside of the 
neighborhood where, up to that time, she had spent 
her life. Her sick son was fifteen years old. She wished 
me to talk with him, which I was glad to do. I told 
him of Christ, who came into the world to save sinners, 
and was ready to save him. He listened eagerly, but 
soon said: " If you mean by sin cussin, I never done 
that." When I told him of Jesus he looked intently 
into my face, and said: "I never heard of him before." 



256 A Border City in the Civil War 

I felt myself to be a real missionary, sent to tell one 
poor, sick boy, a stranger in a strange city, of the 
Saviour, who then and there was ready to receive him 
as his child. But these cases were not rare among poor 
whites. The few that could read formed the exceptional 
class. 

Moreover, a large part of them were discouraged, 
downhearted, often utterly hopeless. Very many of 
them also were ill. For a considerable period about 
fifty per cent, of the poor white refugees, when they 
reached our city, were sent to hospitals. It was ex- 
tremely difficult to care for them. Unaccustomed to 
the ordinary comforts of intelligent and thrifty com- 
munities, they had little or no appreciation of the things 
offered to them by the benevolent to alleviate their 
sufferings. The delicacies usually so highly prized by 
the sick were manifestly repulsive to many of them. 
Some Christian women, anxious to do what they could 
to help and cheer them, carried to the hospital preserved 
fruits and jeUies. Rejoicing in doing good to those in 
distress, they personally offered them these tempting 
delicacies, prepared by their own hands. But the 
wretched sufferers, having never seen nor tasted such 
food, said to the angels of mercy that urged them to 
partake, " We'uns don't want that ah; bring us clabber 
and cawn cakes, that's what we'uns like." 

A few days after I visited the same hospital and 
talked with the surgeon in charge of it. He told me 
that the sick refugees seemed to be utterly destitute of 
heart and hope, and that it was quite impossible to 
get such dejected men upon their feet again. While 
he spoke the clock struck twelve. "Before nine o'clock," 
he said, "I visited every man in the hospital and care- 
fully noted his condition. I did not find one desperately 



Refugees 257 

ill, nor did I see any evidence of approaching death. 
But since that time three of them have died." " And 
how," I asked, "do you account for their deaths?" 
He replied, ''They die simply because they have not 
enough ambition to breathe." 

But of course they were not all alike. Their differences 
were interesting and suggestive. A gentleman told 
me that a Baptist woman from Mississippi wished to 
see me. I found her on Third Street, in the second 
story of a tumble-down brick house. She was not an 
object of charity. She had brought along with her 
enough money and household stuff to meet all of her 
bodily wants. But the things in her room seemed to 
be in inextricable confusion. She apparently had a 
genius for disorder. Her apartment was grimy, filthy, 
malodorous; like the king's " offence " in " Hamlet," it 
was rank and smelled to heaven. She was of medium 
height, fat, had brown, frowzy hair, and dull, leaden 
eyes, under dust-colored eyebrows. Her cheeks were 
sallow and flabby. Around her obesity hung a faded, 
dirty, calico gown, that did not quite reach her ankles. 
Her bare feet were conspicuous, thrust into a pair of 
coarse slippers, with worn-down, run-over heels. Hang- 
ing to her belt by her side was a cow's horn, in which 
was a stick, frayed at one end, making a rude brush. 
She offered me a chair, and having seated herself by a 
rusty, rickety cooking-stove, our conversation began. 
"Ah ye," she said, "the Babtis' minister? " I told her 
who I was. She now took the stick from the horn at 
her side, put the brush end of it into her mouth and 
sucked it for a moment, and then thrusting it once 
more into the horn, returned it, laden with snuff, to her 
mouth again. I had heard of snuff-dippers, but this 
was the first one that I had ever seen. Apparently 



258 A Border City in the Civil War 

refreshed by her dip, she said that she was a member 
of a "Babtis' " church down in "Mississipp," and 
wished to "jine" a "Babtis' " church here in St. 
Louis. What could I say to such a proposal? I saw 
at a glance that unless she was thoroughly converted 
from her present habits and mode of life my church 
would not be congenial to her; so I fell back upon a 
stratagem, by which I might satisfy her without denying 
her request, which request, in itself, was of course 
altogether creditable to her. I fled for refuge to the 
deep prejudice of the poor whites against negroes. 
I commended her, I could not do otherwise, for her 
determination to identify herself with her own denomi- 
nation in our city, but told her that a negro belonged 
to my church, and that I had never heard any one in 
the church object to it, and that she might not on that 
account feel at home there. I did not tell her that he 
was the sexton, and had, before his manumission, belonged 
to one of my deacons. But the fact that I did lay before 
her was sufficient for my purpose. Her prejudice was 
aroused; even her dull eyes for a moment shot fire, as 
she declared that she would never " jine " a church 
that had a "niggah" in it. Thus ended my call. 
But I found in my varied labors on their behalf, that 
most women among them were free from the disgusting 
habit of snuff-dipping, and that some of them were not 
violently prejudiced against negroes. If in a measure 
all entertained such prejudice, some at least held it 
in reasonable abeyance. A woman of this sort became 
a member of my church. She was ordinarily neat in 
appearance, but could neither read nor write. She 
had lived in a back country place in Tennessee, where 
most of those with whom she daily associated were 
illiterates. At the breaking out of the war her husband 



Refugees 259 



'& 



became a volunteer Union soldier. On that account 
she was harassed and tormented by the people of her 
neighborhood so that she fled to St. Louis for asylum, 
where soon after her husband's regiment was encamped. 
Being an earnest Christian, she at once united with the 
church; but her husband was soon sent South to 
engage in active service in the field. He knew how to 
write, and she often received letters from him, which 
she could not read. She was deeply mortified in being 
compelled to ask others to read to her her husband's 
letters and to write hers in reply. Spurred by her sense 
of shame, she resolved to overcome her defect. And 
such was her ability that in a few weeks she could both 
read and answer her husband's letters without any help 
from others. I shall never forget the triumphant joy 
with which she told me that in a letter just received, 
her husband assured her that he was able to read every 
word that she had written him. Then she said to me, 
"Where I lived in Tennessee hardly anybody could 
read and write, and I never thought of learning; but 
up here, where everybody reads and writes, I felt awfully 
ashamed that I couldn't, so I said I must know how 
too." And with great glee, she added, "I do now." 
During all the period of the war she was a very efficient 
Christian worker in the encampments and hospitals 
in and around our city. This was another species of 
the white refugees; a class that had the will and native 
talent to overcome their disabilities and rise to a higher 
rank in the social scale. 

There were also many among them who were improv- 
ident and wasteful. Still some of this class were teach- 
able. I remember a widow with three little daughters 
who came up from Arkansas. She had there some real 
estate, but being a Unionist, she had been compelled 



260 A Border City in the Civil War 

by the violence of her secession neighbors to leave in 
hot haste. Having had neither time nor opportunity 
to convert her holdings into money, on her arrival in 
St. Louis, she found herself in want, and was forced, 
for a time, to depend on charity for the bare necessities 
of life. She could neither read nor write, but was a 
sincere Christian, and anxious to do her best. She and 
her children were decent in appearance. She united 
with my church and as often as she could attended the 
public services. The good women of my congregation 
took her under their care and generously provided for 
her. Among other things they gave her a boiled ham, 
and were greatly disheartened by finding, two or three 
days after, that when she and her children had eaten a 
part of it, she had thrown the rest of it out of the win- 
dow. In the heat of the moment they declared that they 
would never help her any more. But I pleaded for 
her. I told them that what seemed to them inexcusable 
wastefulness was simply her habit of life, and that they 
must talk kindly with her about it, and if possible, 
lead her to live reasonably and economically. They 
did so. She received their instructions with hearty 
thanks, declaring that she had done only what she had 
been accustomed to do at her home in Arkansas, but 
that she would now act according to their wishes and 
directions. Soon there was manifest improvement in 
her humble home, and in the personal appearance of 
herself and her little daughters. She sent them to the 
public school. They soon learned to read. Great was 
her joy when they could read to her their Sunday-school 
books and the New Testament. At the close of the war 
she sold her property in Arkansas, and bought a place 
a few miles from St. Louis in Illinois. The last time I 
saw her was at the depot, across the river, whither she 



Refugees 261 

had gone with her children, to take the cars for her new 
home. They were plainly but neatly dressed. They 
had been transformed by the patient, kindly work of 
intelligent Christian women. They had found a new life 
and were radiant with joy. So to me, the curtain fell on 
that scene. With renewed confidence I went back to 
the city and to my labors, feeling how richly it paid to 
work for poor white refugees. 

But the greatness of their number appalled us. During 
the war nearly forty thousand entered our gates. To 
care adequately and discriminatingly for such a multi- 
tude, many of whom, as we have already seen, were 
densely ignorant and averse to honest toil, was a task 
too vast for a city of not more than a hundred and 
fifty-two thousand inhabitants. So in this, as in every 
great need engendered by the war, the Federal govern- 
ment, through its military officers, lent a strong, helping 
hand ; while the Sanitary Commission, whose work we 
propose to set forth in a subsequent chapter, took a 
leading part in this great and urgent charity. Through 
this triune agency, among many projects inaugurated 
to meet the wants of the refugees, a six-story building, 
the precursor of several others of like character, was 
fitted up for their accommodation. Into it a thousand 
of them were put. Here they were not simply lodged 
and fed, but were taught to read and write. They were 
also set at various kinds of manual labor, and while 
this to many of them was the bitterest ingredient in 
their cup, it helped pay their way, and gave them truer 
and higher ideas of work. And in all our manifold 
efforts on their behalf, we endeavored not simply to 
feed and clothe them, but also to meet their higher 
needs, to develop their minds and elevate their morals. 

But the presentation of our experiences with the 



262 A Border City in the Civil War 

refugees would not be complete without at least a brief 
survey of the freedmen or fugitives from bondage. 
After General Benjamin F. Butler, in 1861, had feUci- 
tously decided that slaves captured by his troops, or 
fleeing into his lines, were contraband of war, and so 
justly subject to confiscation, throughout the North 
they were generally designated contrabands, and they 
usually bore that name among us. While from first 
to last a multitude of them of various shades of color 
fled to our city, they were by no means as numerous 
as the white refugees; and while they were all illiterate, 
having been inured to labor they were usually ready to 
engage in any menial service. Those who had been 
trained in household work were at once employed by 
the best families of the city; while many field hands, 
that came to us in the winter, had to be cared for by the 
government and by private charity, until spring, when 
most of them found remunerative work in cleaning up 
yards, cultivating gardens, and on farms outside the 
city. Only a small contingent remained to tax our 
benevolence. Some of these were spiritless and thrift- 
less; and some were crippled or sick. However, since 
the contrabands, taken as a whole, were ready to work, 
and were greatly delighted, for the first time in their 
lives, to work for wages, the problem of caring for them 
was comparatively an easy one. 

Many suggestive incidents pertaining to them, some 
sad, some mirth-provoking, came under my eye. The 
contrabands usually trudged into the city in groups, 
bearing in their hands or on their shoulders budgets, 
filled with old clothing or useless traps, their heads 
covered with dilapidated hats or caps, or, in the case of 
the women, wrapped about with red bandanas. Their 
garments were coarse, often tattered, and usually quite 



Refugees 263 

insufficient to shield them against the cold of winter. 
They wore shoes and boots of cowhide which in very 
many cases were nearly worn out, so that often their 
black toes protruded. But one cold, frosty, winter 
day a motley company of fugitives, men, women and 
children, came marching in barefooted. We asked them 
how they came to be in such a wretched plight? They 
said that as they were going "long de road " out in the 
country, some'*Confed sogers " seized them, set them on 
a bank by the roadside, and pulled off their shoes, and 
then told them just to run for their lives. Their unusual 
predicament, and the unanimity and heartiness of their 
artless testimony, convinced all who heard that they 
told the truth. It might have been horse-play on the 
part of some company of the State Guards, but if so, it 
was a grim and terrible joke to this knot of contrabands, 
compelling them to walk many miles with bare feet 
along frozen, snowy roads, the feet of the little children 
frost-bitten and bleeding. 

An occurrence vastly more pathetic was woven into 
my pastoral experience. A slaveholder of the cruel sort 
lived near Jefferson City. There belonged to him a 
little girl eight years old, together with her mother 
and aunt. The early winter of 1861 and 1862 was 
bitterly cold. During one of the severest days of that 
trying season, the thermometer hovering about zero, 
he compelled these two women to saw wood all day 
out in the open air, and the mite of a girl to bring the 
sawed sticks into his wood-shed. With hands stinging 
from the biting frost, they besought him to let them 
warm themselves by the fire; and he answered their 
petition with the lash. Before the day ended they 
nearly perished and the fingers of the child were frozen. 
That night they determined to run away. They knew 



264 A Border City in the Civil War 

that on account of the war many other slaves were 
quitting their masters; why should not they flee from 
the cruelty of theirs? In the darkness the following 
night they slipt away unobserved. They headed for 
St. Louis. The little child, always feeble, was soon 
exhausted. So the mother and aunt by turns carried 
her on their backs. They hid in ravines and thickets, 
when they thought themselves in danger. They ate 
the crackers and bread that they brought with them. 
They slept by haystacks and in outhouses. They 
were frost-bitten. They were full of fear lest the child 
should die. For seventy-five or eighty miles they 
breasted wind and snow, when they met a squad of 
Union soldiers, and asked them for protection and 
guidance. The soldiers as best they could supplied 
their wants, and conducted them to St. Louis. There 
the doors of a Christian home opened to them. No 
longer slaves, they were happy. Those who employed 
them spoke to them kindly. The lash was never again 
to lacerate their quivering flesh. They were justly paid 
for their toil. They owned themselves. They had no 
words to express the joy of it all. 

But the bitter was mingled with the sweet. That 
perilous flight from bondage with the chilling winds 
and snows beating upon them proved fatal to the child 
that they so tenderly loved. From exposure during 
that long winter journey on foot consumption fastened 
itself upon her. She was happy, however, even in her 
extreme sickness. The children in the household loved 
and petted her. Little children have no prejudice 
against color. But she grew weaker day by day. She 
had some notion that God loved her, and that Jesus 
would come and take her to heaven. And on her cot, 
with her face turned upward, she sank as gently to her 



Refugees 265 

long slumber as the infant falls asleep in its mother's 
arms. 

At this time, when ruthless war, without respect to 
slave laws, was breaking the chains of bondmen, two 
contrabands became servants under my own roof. One 
of them was a black man about twenty-five years old. 
He said his name was Jim, and so we called him, though 
his full name was James Jackson. He did the rougher 
work required by the household, split the wood, brought 
in the coal, kept the yard in trim, ran errands, and cared 
for the horse and carriage. He proved to be teachable 
and trustworthy. According to his light, he was a good 
man. One day when he was splitting wood, I said to 
him: "Jim, they say that if you negroes are set free 
you will not be able to take care of 5^ourselves, to earn 
your own living. What do you say to that? " He left 
his axe sticking in the log that he was splitting and fell 
into a brown study, but soon replied: "I'se can't see 
that. We'se took care of them and us too for a long 
time, and can't we'se take care of ourselves? " That 
seemed to be good reasoning, and I felt sure that Jim 
could earn his own way. 

He said that he would like to learn to read, and for 
a good many weeks I tried to instruct him in the art. 
But being utterly unaccustomed to that sort of mental 
effort, he made very slow progress. However, by degrees, 
he mastered the names of the letters, and was able with 
painful effort to read a few of the simplest words. He 
was a Christian and wanted to read the Bible. So I 
bought him a New Testament of large, plain print and, 
after a hard struggle, he was seemingly able to read 
the text: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He was very 
happy over his acquisition, and so was I. He would 



266 A Border City in the Civil War 

read that text over and over again. He had no doubt 
that he really read it, nor had I. But wishing him to 
add something to his acquisitions, I turned to another 
chapter in the Gospel of Matthew, and, putting my 
finger on a verse, asked him to read it. He intently 
fixed his eyes upon it and began: "Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest." I asked him to read another verse, in another 
chapter, and running his finger along the words, he 
read: "Come unto me, etc." I afterwards found him 
at times reading his New Testament, but I feel quite 
sure that he never found anything in it except that 
gracious, tender invitation of his Saviour, He of course 
read simply from his memory, but thought that he read 
from his book. 

I afterwards united him in marriage to an excellent 
colored woman. They set up housekeeping for them- 
selves. They did well and were happy. Whether Jim 
lives now or not, I do not know, but if he has passed 
away, I am sure that in the hour of his death he heard 
his Lord say: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 

The other contraband servant was a middle-aged 
woman, who gave her name as Harriet. She was large 
and muscular, and black as ink. She would pick up, 
as though it were a trifle, a washtub full of water and 
carry it across the room. Nothing seemed to weary her. 
She did cheerfully her daily tasks. She was happy in 
her new-found freedom. To receive week by week 
money for her labor made her cup of joy brim over. 
The dawning consciousness that she belonged to herself 
and had a right to what she earned filled her with 
unspeakable gladness. 

She too had an abiding trust in Christ. She said she 



Refugees 267 

was "Methdis." She had an active mind. She was 
intellectually much brighter than Jim, Her new con- 
dition and surroundings awakened within her mind 
many inquiries. Busy with her new thoughts as she 
worked, one day she said: "Dar ah some tings that I 
doan unerstan. Up in de State where I lived, wen thar 
was 'vival meetin an dey wanted us to be good and 
'jine'de chuch, den we had souls; but wen dey wants 
to sell us down souf, den we has no souls. Can you 
tell me about dat? Seems mighty strange! " 

This was an outburst from an honest, sturdy soul, 
that had been kept in ignorance. It vividly revealed 
the antagonistic forces that often battled for supremacy 
in the minds of Christian slaveholders. When they 
sorely needed money they stifled their consciences with 
the figment that their slaves were merely beasts, that 
might be sold with impunity; but when their better 
selves were touched by heavenly influences, they felt 
that their chattels had immortal souls that might be 
saved or lost. It has been said that some men, like 
modern ships, are made up of distinct compartments, 
which, in moral action, have no communication with 
each other. So it seems to have been with some pro- 
fessedly Christian slaveholders; at slave sales and 
whipping-posts the tyrant compartment was in full and 
exclusive activity; while at revival meetings the Chris- 
tian compartment put forth its exclusive energy. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

DIFFICULT CURRENCY 

When the Federal government, soon after the break- 
ing out of the war, began to issue paper money, all 
specie, both gold and silver, speedily disappeared. For 
many years the five-cent piece had been the smallest 
coin used in the stores and markets of St. Louis. It 
was silver, since the day of the nickel had not yet come. 
The copper cent, then large and cumbersome, was 
absolutely tabooed in our city; it was nowhere current 
except at the post-office. This was always a surprise to 
newcomers, and sometimes an embarrassment. A lady, 
who was a comparative stranger to our customs, going 
to the market when cabbages were unusully abundant, 
asked a vender the price of them, and was quite upset 
when he replied, " Six for five cents, madam." "But," 
she gasped, "I don't want so many." "Very well," 
he said, "take them as you want them." 

But when all coins had disappeared both buyers and 
sellers were often at their wits' end, and only by patience 
and mutual forbearance could ordinary business be 
transacted. 

This want of coin for a time also seriously interfered 
with travel in our city. Happy were those who had 
horses and carriages; but most of us must either go 
afoot, or take the horse-cars. Nobody then had so much 
as dreamed of either the grip-car or trolley. But the 



Difficult Currency 269 

vexed question was, how could we pay our fare? Neither 
we nor the conductor had any change and none was to 
be had. But necessity is the mother of invention; and 
necessity for a considerable period drove us to pay our 
horse-car fare in postage-stamps. But in summer 
the weather in St. Louis is often very warm, sometimes 
sissing hot. On such days we found the requisite stamps 
glued to our pocketbooks, or, if folded in our vest pockets, 
melted into a glutinous mass. How we then worked to 
separate the sticky things so as not to destroy them! 
How dilapidated they were when finally disengaged 
from their adhesive fellows! In getting them ready 
for service, some lost patience and expressed themselves 
in words that would not pass muster in polite society; 
while others differently made up broke out into laughter 
at the comicality of the whole thing. 

Soon the government came to our aid by issuing in 
March, 1862, "postage currency." Five, ten, twenty- 
five and fifty cent notes abounded. Postage stamps 
as currency then disappeared from the marts of retail 
trade, and no longer pestered street-car passengers 
and conductors. These tiny notes of green paper were 
now doing the usual work of the silver coins that had 
gone into hiding. And a year later, in March, 1863, 
the government, still seeking to help the people in that 
time when metallic currency was no longer in evidence, 
issued paper "fractional currency." For greater con- 
venience notes of three and fifteen cents were issued in 
addition to those of the " postage currency." 

These small notes were generally called shinplasters. 
How fine they looked as they came crisp and clean from 
Washington; but in a dusty, smoky city like ours, 
constantly passing from hand to hand, they soon became 
worn, tattered, almost illegible, and unspeakably nasty. 



270 A Border City in the Civil War 

But few seemed to care for this. These begrimed notes 
met our necessities in barter; and as to any incon- 
venience or repulsiveness that was accounted for and 
cheerfully endured as a part of the war. 

The government, in order to raise money to meet its 
necessities, issued seven per cent, bonds of fifty and one 
hundred dollars. I invested five hundred dollars in 
these securities, and to my astonishment was reported 
in the papers and personally congratulated on the street 
as having done a patriotic act. I had not looked upon 
it in that light. But the incident shows that very many 
in St. Louis then thought the stability of our Republic 
so precarious that investing money in her bonds at 
seven per cent, was regarded as an act of patriotic self- 
sacrifice. That is a sort of self-sacrifice that hosts of 
men would be glad to indulge in now. 



CHAPTER XIX 

NOT PEACE BUT THE SWORD 

On the 19th of May, 1862, Edward Everett came to 
us and delivered his famous oration on Washington. 
Very few in our city had ever before seen him. A large 
audience of the most intelligent and cultured among 
us gathered to hear him. The style of his great speech 
was clear and finished; his elocution, while a little 
stately, was nearly faultless; his voice was agreeable 
and reaching; his gestures graceful and fitting, but 
he lacked magnetism. His whole effort seemed somewhat 
studied and a bit mechanical. When pronouncing a 
given phrase he stretched out his arm and from the 
palm of his hand extended one finger; when uttering 
another, he extended two fingers; when enunciating 
another, three fingers; and now and then in making 
a full-arm gesture he opened the whole hand. One could 
not help thinking that before appearing in public he 
had carefully drilled himself before a looking-glass. 

His audience listened intently, but was not much 
moved. He appealed to the head far more strongly 
than to the heart. Still to sit at the feet of so dis- 
tinguished an orator was to us all a rare treat. 

He was not only gathering funds to complete the 
Washington monument at the national capital, but was 
still endeavoring, through the love borne to Washington 
by the people both of the North and South, to unite a 



272 A Border City in the Civil War 

divided and warring nation. Amid the clash of arms 
he was eloquently pleading for peace. His purpose was 
noble, but his effort was futile. The ears of contending 
hosts, seething with the passions of war, were deaf to 
all appeals for peace. One might as well have under- 
taken to put out the fires of a conflagration by a speech, 
as to stay the bloody national conflict then raging by 
an oration on Washington. 

Fiercer war soon followed this eloquent pleading for 
good will and harmony. When, in April, General 
Halleck departed for Corinth, Mississippi, he left General 
Schofield in command of the greater part of our State, 
and on the 1st of June he put him in temporary com- 
mand of the entire Department of Missouri. General 
Schofield now sent all the soldiers that could possibly 
be spared from St. Louis and Missouri to swell the ranks 
of the army in Mississippi. The ever watchful enemy 
learned from spies among us that we were largely 
denuded of national troops, and determined to put 
forth one more vigorous effort to secure the secession 
of Missouri. 

Their hostile campaign had been manifestly skilfully 
planned. Their open and aggressive movement began 
in the latter part of June. All at once guerrillas swarmed 
in every part of the State. It is estimated that there 
were full ten thousand of them.^ They were first in 
northeast, then in central and western, Missouri; now 
here, now there, they looted and burned the houses of 
Union men; plundered farms and villages; tore up 
railroad tracks; destroyed bridges; attacked different 
detachments of militia; were by turns victorious and 
defeated; but on August 13th, having massed their 
forces, they won a signal victory over the Union troops 

' w. R. s. 1, Vol. XXII, P. 1, p. 811. 



Not Peace but the Sword 273 

at Independence, and two days later ambushed eight 
hundred of them in Jackson Count)'. No one now cares 
for the rebel Colonels Porter, Quantrell, Cobb, Poin- 
dexter. Coffee, McBride and Hughes; but they were 
then the chief figures in these scenes of desolation. But 
when they were at the height of their success, the scale 
turned. General Blunt from Kansas appeared with a 
small but well-appointed army and drove them with 
their ill-gotten plunder into Arkansas. 

But as flies when brushed away at once return again, 
so they appeared again in September, in northeast 
Missouri, and so effective were their movements that 
for the time being they took possession of that part of 
the State, except posts adequately garrisoned by United 
States troops. 

But during this period of turmoil General Schofield 
was wide awake. On June 22d, very soon after these 
devastating raids began, he issued an order in which 
he held "rebels and rebel sympathizers responsible in 
their property, and, if need be, in their persons, for 
damages thereafter committed by guerrillas or marauding 
parties." And while this had no immediate effect the 
order was not in vain. It was the precursor of energetic 
action. On the 22d of July, Governor Gamble authorized 
the general to organize the entire militia of the State, 
and to order so much of it into active service, as he 
should deem necessary to put down all marauders, and 
to defend the peaceable citizens of the commonwealth. 
On the same day, Schofield commanded the immediate 
organization of the militia "for the purpose of exter- 
minating the guerrillas infesting the State." This diffi- 
cult work was pushed with great rapidity and was 
soon effected. 

In September, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas were 



274 A Border City in the Civil War 

made a single military district, and over it was put in 
command General Curtis, with headquarters at St. 
Louis. General Schofield now took the field. It is 
important that each army have a name, and the one 
that he led, made up largely of State militia, was quite 
appropriately called the "Army of the Frontier." He 
moved his forces wisely, and with great energy. He 
vanquished his enemies in battle, and by October 10th 
had cleared southwest Missouri of them, and driven 
them into Arkansas, which was a refuge for rebels 
worsted in our State. By the close of the month, two 
able Union colonels had driven all rebel guerrillas from 
southeast Missouri into the same haven. So ended that 
memorable guerrilla uprising, and for a season our State 
was quite generally free from the turmoil of war. 

Now we in St. Louis were bound up, as in one bundle, 
with all that transpired in the State. We learned by 
manifold experiences that there was a depth of meaning 
in the phrase, "body politic." The sensation from a 
stinging blow on toe or finger is no more certainly con- 
veyed to the brain, than were the distresses in the State 
quickly felt in our city. When any part of our common- 
wealth suffered, we suffered. So we realized with ever- 
increasing clearness that our destiny was one with that 
of the State at large. Whatever our differences might 
be, together we should stay in the Union, or together 
go out of it. So when in June came the unexpected 
guerrilla uprising, that seemed simultaneously to burst 
out of the earth in all parts of the commonwealth, it 
put all St. Louis in an attitude of defence. Most of the 
army that had been our protection were in the field far 
to the south. For many months we had had an organiza- 
tion of Home Guards, and now with fresh zeal they gave 
themselves to military drill. Many hitherto supine 



Not Peace but the Sword 275 

joined them. One regiment was made up of old men. 
To see them in uniform and under arms was an inspira- 
tion. Their ranks were full. They marched along the 
streets with firm, determined tread, their gray hair and 
white beards speaking eloquently of their devotion and 
patriotism. 

New regiments were formed. I joined one of them. 
We were drilled on the ground floor of a defunct brewery. 
There we marched and countermarched and went 
through with the manual of arms, so that if the city 
should be attacked we might defend it with some 
degree of efficiency. 

But stirring us up to make more complete preparation 
for the defence of the city was not the sole outcome of 
the guerrilla uprising; the devastation wrought by it 
in the State sent flying to us for succor another swarm 
of refugees. Fortunately, many of them could care 
for themselves, still a large contingent were dependent 
on the government and on private charity for the neces- 
saries of life. 

But the saddest result of the ruthless guerrilla cam- 
paign was the shutting up for many months of the 
common schools in nearly every county of the State. 
Such a calamity was measureless. And while our city 
schools were undisturbed, we keenly sympathized with 
our fellow-citizens in the State, and learned anew that, 
in what was of highest worth, we were kin. 



CHAPTER XX 

CHARCOALS AND CLAYBANKS 

In our hot fight for Missouri and the Union we unhap- 
pily split up into factions. We not only contended 
against secession but against each other. And the 
warring factions were significantly named Charcoals 
and Claybanks. The Charcoals taken as a whole were 
uncompromising radicals, while the Claybanks were the 
conservatives. Many of the Claybanks had been born 
and educated in the North, while some of the blackest 
of the Charcoals had been reared in the midst of slaveiy . 
They were recent converts to Unionism and gloried in 
their new-found faith. 

What gave birth to these party names no one can 
certainly tell. Apparently, hke Topsy, they "just 
growed." The clay of Missouri is of a decidedly neutral 
tint. Perhaps an extremist, indignant at a conservative 
for his colorless views, called him a claybank; and 
since the name was descriptive, fitting, and easily under- 
stood by Missourians, it stuck. The conservative, stung 
by the epithet, may have warmly retorted, "You are a 
charcoal." And that name, equally descriptive and 
fitting, also stuck. At all events each faction named the 
other, and each adopted the name hostilely given and 
gloried in it. And for many months these names bandied 
by the opposing factions played an important part in 
the heated controversies of our State. 



Charcoals and Claybanks 277 

Both Charcoals and Claybanks were loyal to the 
Federal government. Upon the main issue, the pres- 
ervation of the Union, they agreed; but they were at 
swords' points upon the statement of the problem in 
hand and the method of its solution. The Claybanks 
contended that the foremost question was the main- 
tenance of the Union. They were ready to preserve it 
either with or without slavery. So their cry was: 
"Let us first save the Union, and afterwards adjust the 
matter of slavery." 

On the other hand, the avowed object of the Charcoals 
was to save the Union without slavery; and perhaps 
they were unduly impatient with those who would save 
the Union with slavery, or even with those who would 
save the Union with or without slavery. But they were 
always ready to give a reason for the faith that was in 
them. They said: "Slavery is unquestionably the 
cause of secession and of this bloody war. If we preserve 
the Union and with it the cause of its present disruption, 
then, at no distant day, the same cause will rend it 
again, and our soil will be drenched with the blood 
of our children. We believe the doctrine of our great 
President, that the nation cannot continue half slave 
and half free. We therefore give ourselves to the 
extermination of the fruitful cause of all our present 
distress. We fight and pray for the restoration of the 
Union, but of the Union purged of human bondage." 

These opposing factions also radically disagreed as 
to the method of dealing with the disloyal, or those 
suspected of disloyalty. The Claybanks contended 
that in dealing with rebels or rebel-sympathizers their 
previous surroundings and education should be taken 
into account, and large allowance should be made for 
their inevitable prejudices; that many slaveholders 



278 A Border City in the Civil War 

were Unionists and ought not to be driven into hostility 
to the general government by needlessly severe measures ; 
that every day that they remained in our ranks their 
Unionism would grow stronger; and that since they were 
with us on the main question of Unionism, all other 
questions should be permitted to sink from sight. 

But the shibboleth of the Charcoals was: " No 
quarter to slavery or secession." They maintained that 
since the war had been begun by secessionists, in a 
mixed community like Missouri it was of the utmost 
importance to find out who were really for the Union 
and who were against it; and that the shortest road to 
such knowledge was through uncompromising and 
drastic measures; and that in the long run such a course 
of action, rigidly adhered to, would be productive of the 
least suffering, and consequently most humane. So 
they urged that all aiders and abetters of rebellion 
should be imprisoned or sent beyond the lines of the 
Federal army, and their property confiscated. 

But all Charcoals were not ahke; some were much 
more extreme in their views than others. At times 
they strenuously opposed one another, and the more 
moderate among them held the more radical in check. 
A like diversity of views was seen among Claybanks. 
But notwithstanding the variety of views held by each 
of these factional parties, each, as we have seen, unitedly 
and bitterly opposed the other, both in reference to the 
aim of the war and the manner of conducting it. 

When our military commanders came to us one 
after another, they were beset, not to say besieged, 
by the Charcoals and Claybanks in reference to the 
conduct of the war in Missouri. Each faction tried to 
forestall the other by getting the ear of the new general 
first, and telling him just what he ought to do in order 








Maj.-Gen. Jouis c. Fremont Maj.-Gen. Henry W. Halleck 

Maj.-Gen. John McA. Schofield Maj.-Gen. William S. Rosecrans 

Hon. Frank P. Blair, Jr, 



Charcoals and Claybanks 279 

to achieve success. Each was absolutely sure that only 
its way was right. Any other course than the one 
suggested would lead to utter disaster. Each party 
was so dead in earnest that when its views were dis- 
carded it cursed the idiot that had not heeded them. 
To do his duty intelligently and fearlessly amid this 
din of clashing opinions, a commander of the Depart- 
ment of Missouri needed great clearness of thought, 
coolness of disposition, and firmness of purpose. He 
did not lie on a bed of roses, but on bumblebees' nests. 

General Fremont, whose career among us I have 
already briefly delineated, gave himself too much into 
the hands of the radicals. He did this partly because 
he himself was naturally radical, and partly from the 
influence of his environment. Our German fellow- 
citizens, whose views were extreme, at the start got the 
ear of the general and held it to the last. Mr. Blair, 
the leader of the Union men of St. Louis, although at 
first very radical, soon drew away from the extremists, 
and became a conservative. It was through his great 
personal influence that Fremont had been put over 
the Department of the West, and by that same influence 
he had been removed from his command. Among 
other reasons urged as making his removal necessary 
was his radicalism, that had offensively manifested 
itself when he exceeded his authority in manumitting 
slaves. 

His successor in command was quite as radical as 
he; but Halleck courted information. He listened 
attentively to both Charcoals and Claybanks. Having 
gotten the views of both factions, he discreetly kept his 
own counsels. He was independent and fearless. His 
measures were often startlingly radical; but his blows, 
which fell hard and fast, were mainly directed against 



280 A Border City in the Civil War 

rebels, rebel-sympathizers, bushwhackers, bridge-burners 
and spies. He did, to be sure, as we have seen, deliver 
a batch of slaves from durance vile and put them on the 
road to freedom; but in doing it he was very careful 
to keep strictly within the limits of his authority. While 
he did not fully please any faction, his administration 
taken as a whole was far more satisfactory to the Char- 
coals than to the Claybanks. 

General Samuel R. Curtis, Hallcck's successor, leaned 
decidedly to the Charcoals; in fact he was a Charcoal 
himself. He and they evidently were one in thought 
and sentiment. He carried out so far as he was able 
their extreme views. Without possessing Halleck's 
discretion, he continued the policy of assessing wealthy 
secessionists. But this policy had gradually taken on 
new features. What began in assessments had unfolded 
into confiscation. During the last month of his adminis- 
tration. General Curtis sent to the South, beyond the 
lines of the Union army, not a few persons of means. 
Those having families were permitted to take with 
them a thousand dollars; those without families two 
hundred dollars each. The rest of their property was 
confiscated and used to meet the necessities of sick 
and wounded soldiers. 

While in some cases this mode of procedure was 
unquestionably justifiable, still it was a policy specially 
liable to abuse. It was deprecated by many of the 
staunchest Union men. They maintained that in a 
heterogeneous community like ours, where there was 
every kind and shade of political opinion, it could hardly 
fail to subject some good men to the rankest injustice; 
that those who did not openly participate in rebellion, 
whatever might be their political views or sympathies, 
should be let alone. There were among us many good 



Charcoals and Claybanks 281 

men who were born and educated in the South, and 
while opposed to the folly of secession, they nevertheless 
naturally sympathized with their kith and kin; and 
the drastic policy of the extreme radicals and of their 
Charcoal general greatly disturbed and disheartened 
them. 

Take this as a representative case. There was in 
St. Louis a prominent Presbyterian minister of Southern 
sympathies. He had been born and bred in the midst 
of slavery. He hardly knew where he stood politically. 
He swung uncertainly between Unionism and seces- 
sionism. Like all such irresolute, hesitating mortals, 
he got into difficulty. The staunch Union men of his 
church secured his removal from his pulpit by ecclesias- 
tical authority; and he now stood in fear lest the hand 
of military power might be laid upon him. So he deter- 
mined to leave the State. One of his familiar acquaint- 
ances found him one morning boxing up his household 
goods, on the sidewalk before his door, and in surprise 
exclaimed: " Doctor, what's up now?" He rephed: 
" I am going to get out of this State of Misery; -^ I can 
endure it no longer." "Where are you going? " asked 
his friend. He answered, "I am going to Kentucky." 
" Why," said his neighbor, "that is a worse State than 
this." "Then," said the doctor, "it must be a State 
of Despair." 

The extreme policy of General Curtis soon brought 
him into collision with our conservative, provisional 
Governor. The sparks flew. The Charcoals and Clay- 
banks put on fresh war-paint. The one upheld the 
general and his radical policy; the other the Governor 
and his more moderate policy. While both parties were 
for the Union, they denounced each other in the hottest 

* At that time Missouri was called a State of Misery. 



282 A Border City in the Civil War 

terms. If we had beUeved what both factions declared, 
we should have been forced to conclude that there was 
scarcely a decent man among all the Unionists in the 
State. Each party again and again appealed to the 
President for his support, but of course he could not 
side with either. At last, worn out by this incessant 
strife, in May, 1863, he removed General Curtis from his 
command and put General Schofield in his place. 

On May 24th, the new commander began his work. 
He was not a stranger to us. Before the war he had been 
for several months professor of physics in Washington 
University, which adorned our city, and was highly 
esteemed by all who knew him. Nor was he unfamiliar 
with this military department, having been put in com- 
mand of it for a time by General Halleck. During his 
brief administration at that time he did such thorough 
and heroic work that we all expected of him wise, 
Hberal, patriotic service, and were not disappointed. 

Three days after he had relieved General Curtis, the 
President wrote him a letter, which is so quaint and 
so packed with good sense that we feel impelled to 
reproduce it. It tersely portrays the difficult task 
that confronted him. 

"Executive Mansion, Washington, 
'' May 27, 1863. 
" General J. M. Schofield: 

" My dear Sir: — Having relieved General Curtis and 
assigned you to the command of the Department of 
Missouri, I think it may be of some advantage for me 
to state to 3^ou why I did it. I did not relieve General 
Curtis because of any full conviction that he had done 
wrong by commission or omission. I did it because 
of a conviction in my mind that the Union men of 



Charcoals and Claybanks 283 

Missouri, constituting, wlien united, a vast majority 
of the whole people, have entered into a pestilent fac- 
tional quarrel among themselves — General Curtis, 
perhaps not from choice, being the head of one faction, 
and Governor Gamble that of the other. After months 
of labor to reconcile the difficulty, it seemed to grow 
worse and worse, until I felt it my duty to break it up 
somehow; and as I could not remove Governor Gamble, 
I had to remove General Curtis. Now that you are in 
the position, I wish you to undo nothing merely because 
General Curtis or Governor Gamble did it, but to exercise 
your own judgment and do right for the public interest. 
Let your military measures be strong enough to repel 
the invader and keep the peace, and not so strong as to 
unnecessarily harass and persecute the people. It is 
a difficult role, and so much greater will be the honor 
if you perform it well. If both factions, or neither, 
shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. 
Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the 
other. 

" Yours truly, 

" A. Lincoln." 

So the general was to begin his duties with a clean 
slate. But no sooner had he taken firmly hold of his 
work than the extreme Charcoals began to oppose him 
and Governor Gamble. Happily he and the Governor 
agreed in policy and were united in action. 

An act of the Governor first elicited the wrath of the 
extremists. The policy of assessing well-to-do dis- 
unionists, begun in St. Louis, had spread itself over the 
whole State. The dragons' teeth sown by Halleck were 
producing an abundant harvest. Just at this time the 
Provost-marshal general was engaged in gathering 



rs-i A I5order City in the Civil War 

assessments in different parts of our commonwealth. 
Opposed as the Governor was to this arbitrary method 
of dealing with supposed disloyalty, he commanded the 
enrolled militia, that was under his immediate control, 
not to aid the Marshal in collecting the assessments that 
he had made. For this, the Charcoals poured the vials 
of their wrath upon his head. 

But the Federal commander did not long escape their 
vituperation. That border ruffian, Quantrell, and his 
lawless gang, made a raid into Kansas, looted Lawrence 
and murdered many of its inhabitants. For this das- 
tardly outrage the extreme radicals unreasonably blamed 
General Schofield. And when General Lane of Kansas 
and the men following his lead wished to invade Missouri 
in order to make reprisals, Schofield, in the interest of 
peace and good order, would not permit it. For this 
the extreme Charcoals bitterly denounced him, and 
even called in question his loyalty. They determined 
to down him. In their newspapers they sharply criticized 
him and his methods. In return he fulminated an order 
against the immoderate and lawless press, threatening 
to throttle it. This was an unwise act on his part. It 
encouraged them in their opposition. They had not 
toiled in vain. At least they had made the lion roar. 
They went to reprehensible extremes. The general 
believed that they tampered with some of the enrolled 
militia, that had been put by the Governor under his 
command. He sent a regiment of militia to New 
Madrid to relieve the 25th Missouri, and while on 
board the steamboat, going down the Mississippi, they 
mutinied, landed, and went to their homes. So if the 
general's information was not at fault, faction began 
to blossom into treason. 

As late as October (1863) the radicals sent a com- 



Charcoals and Claybanks 285 

munication to the War Department complaining that 
General Schofield had enrolled rebels in the militia of 
northwest Missouri, and disarmed Unionists. The 
general, replying to this charge, declared that he had 
enrolled "twice as many former rebels" as were 
named by his accusers, ''amounting to from five to 
ten per cent, of the whole " mihtia organization 
of that part of the State, and that he was glad to 
make a repentant rebel of "more service to the govern- 
ment than a man who never had any political sins to 
repent of." He also felt great satisfaction in putting 
men of that class to "guard the property of their more 
loyal neighbors." ^ So that the act of which his enemies 
complained was evidently both wise and patriotic. 

At last the extremists sent a large delegation to Wash- 
ington to lay the situation in Missouri, as they appre- 
hended it, before the President, and to urge him to 
remove General Schofield and appoint in his place 
General Butler. Mr. Lincoln heard them patiently, 
and on the following day replied to them in a strong, 
lucid paper. With marvellous insight he analyzed the 
parties in our State, and pointed out their attitude 
towards each other, and towards both the State and 
national government. He also heartily sustained 
General Schofield. The members of the delegation were 
of course disappointed, but returned wiser than when 
they went. They had surveyed at a distance the 
factional strife of their State. The perspective gave 
them a juster notion of its relative importance. They 
had listened to the luminous analysis of it all by the 
clear-headed President. They saw new light. From 
that day factional strife began to subside. It lingered, 
but it was less virulent. Little by little reason resumed 

» Forty-Six Years in the Army, pp. 104-106. 



286 A Border City in the Civil War 

its sway, and a larger charity found place in the minds 
of those holding divergent views. 

But the view of these radicals which General Schofield 
presents in Chapter V of his " Forty-Six Years in the 
Army," seems to me to be somewhat misleading. Ad- 
mitting, as he claims, that some of them plotted to 
overthrow the provisional State government, and to 
change the policy of the national administration, and 
instigated to open mutiny a regiment of enrolled militia, 
his declaration that "they are loyal only to their 
radical theories, and so radical that they cannot pos- 
sibly be loyal to the government," certainly was not 
true of the great mass of them. While some of them, in 
their zeal for the extinction of slavery and secession, 
were led into the advocacy of condemnable policies, 
the loyalty of most of them was spotless. Many who 
clamored for the general's removal did so patriotically, 
believing that the highest interests of Missouri demanded 
it. I believed then, as I do now, that they were in 
error, but they were true as steel both to their honest 
convictions and, as they saw it, to their country. And 
with the unswerving conviction that in the conflict 
then raging slavery would perish, they fought right on. 
Never were men more intensely in earnest. They won 
at last, as we shall see. Not the Claybank, but the 
Charcoal triumphed, and in that triumph both were 
equally blessed. And both contributed to the victory; 
the intensity of the Charcoal made it possible; the 
conservatism of the Claybank made it reasonable and 
most largely beneficent. But General Schofield came 
near to achieving the position between the factions 
that the President craved for him. While on the whole 
he was more satisfactory to the Claybanks than to the. 
Charcoals, he was not wholly satisfactory to either. 



Charcoals and Claybanks 287 

Some of the Claybanks were bitterly opposed to his 
policy of enlisting negro troops. And when some loyal 
slaveholders found their chattels wearing the uniform 
of United States soldiers, and claimed their property, 
they were both amazed and wrathful when informed by 
the general that, notwithstanding their loyalty, their 
slaves by their act of enlistment had been made free. 
So it came to pass that some Claybanks and some 
Charcoals approved him, some Claybanks and some 
Charcoals, for totally different reasons, sharply con- 
demned him. In a most delicate and difficult position, 
he tactfully did what he believed to be right, and won 
the approval of the best elements in both of the warring 
factions. 



CHAPTER XXI 

HOMES AND HOSPITALS^ 

When, in 1861, the war broke out in Missouri, and 
the battles of Boonville, Carthage, Dug Spring and 
Wilson's Creek were fought, and collisions and skir- 
mishes multipHed throughout the State, the demand for 
greater hospital accommodations at St. Louis became 
imperative. The New House of Refuge Hospital, two 
miles south of the city, proved to be altogether inade- 
quate ; and when all the wards of the St. Louis Hospital, 
kept by the Sisters of Charity, and of the City Hospital 
had been filled, still more room was at once required. 

To meet this urgent necessity something must be 
done immediately. In our straits we appealed to General 
Fremont, who promptly came to our aid,^ and, on 
September 5th, issued an order, authorizing the Western 
Sanitary Commission, under the medical director of 
the army, to select, fit up, and furnish suitable buildings 
for "Army and Brigade Hospitals;" to choose and 
appoint, under the authority of Miss Dorothea L. Dix, 
general superintendent of the nurses of military hos- 
pitals in the United States, female nurses; to cooperate 
with the surgeons of the army in providing male nurses ; 
to visit the various military camps, consult with the 

' In addition to my own observations, for the facts set forth in this 
chapter I am largely indebted to "The Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion : A Sketch ." 

* Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. Ill, D. of E., p. 25. 



Homes and Hospitals 289 

commanding officers in reference to the sanitary con- 
dition of the troops, and aid them in providing the 
best means for preventing sickness, such as proper 
drainage, warm clothing and wholesome food. More- 
over the Commission was enjoined to use every available 
means for the promotion of the social and moral welfare 
of the soldiers. To satisfy the varied wants of those in 
camps and hospitals, the Commission was directed to 
procure from the people at large such supplies as they 
would freely contribute to supplement those furnished 
by the government. But all this must be done in full 
and hearty cooperation with the regular medical staff 
of the army, some members of which were jealous of 
their honors and at times foolishly sensitive to inno- 
vations. 

Finally, the general's order declared that " This 
Sanitary Commission will, for the present, consist of 
James E. Yeatman, Esq.; C. S. Greely, Esq.; J. B. 
Johnson, M. D.; George Partridge, Esq.; and Rev. 
William G. Ehot, D. D." Two of these were broad- 
minded, enterprising merchants; one was a physician 
of high standing; while Mr. Yeatman was a retired 
Tennessee planter. He had been a slaveholder; but, 
called to go down the Mississippi River on business, he 
received from what he saw during his trip such an 
impression of the enormity of slavery, that, when he 
returned, he manumitted his slaves, sold his plantation, 
and thereafter made St. Louis his home. He was a rare 
man. He was eminently just. He saw clearly the 
fundamental elements of every problem presented to 
the Commission for solution. He had large adminis- 
trative ability, a sharp eye for details, and, to crown 
all, a great heart. Few men in the nation did more 
than he to bring the war to a successful issue. 



290 A Border City in the Civil War 

Dr. Eliot, whose name stands last on this roll of 
honor, was the pastor of the only Unitarian church in 
our city. By long and efficient ministerial service he 
had endeared himself to all the people. His name in 
St. Louis was a household word. But he was as noted 
for his skill and efficiency in inaugurating and success- 
fully conducting large public enterprises, as for his 
wise and multifarious pastoral labors. He was the 
founder of Washington University and of Mary Insti- 
tute, and it was through his personal efforts that these 
institutions, an ornament to our city, were built up. In 
fact every beneficent enterprise in St. Louis felt the 
stimulating touch of his hand and was indebted to him 
for his thoughtful guidance. Among the ablest pastors 
of our city, he was unquestronabJy best equipped for 
membership in this all-important Sanitary Commission. 

The Commission, thus organized and launched, at 
once began its labors. It rented a five-story building 
at the corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets, and speedily 
fitted it up for hospital service. It was named the 
" City General Hospital." On September 10th, it 
was thrown open for the reception of patients. A throng 
of sick and wounded men, who had been anxiously 
waiting for accommodation and succor, quickly filled 
all its rooms. 

In this building the Sanitary Commission made its 
headquarters. Mr. Yeatman was chosen president and 
gave his whole time to his duties, while the other mem- 
bers of the Commission met with him every day, except 
Sunday, for consultation. For this incessant, exacting 
toil no one of them received any moneyed compensation. 
Without a thought of personal gain they worked unre- 
mittingly and cheerfully for their country. The only 
motive that impelled them was a glowing, self-sacrificing 



Homes and Hospitals 291 

patriotism. For a time, they employed only one man, 
and he acted as storekeeper, porter and clerk for thirty 
dollars a month. And this gratuitous, arduous service, 
beset at times with swarms of perplexities, was continued 
to the close of the war. 

The sick and wounded of the army multiplied so 
rapidly, and the demand for medical aid became so 
insistent, that within two months after the opening of 
the first hospital, the Commission, with almost incredible 
energy, had added five more and all were filled to over- 
flowing. 

On April 6-7, 1862, the battle of Pittsburg Landing, 
or Shiloh, was fought. On that field of carnage, one 
thousand seven hundred and thirty-five Union soldiers 
were killed outright, and seven thousand eight hundred 
and eighty-two were wounded. The latter were sent 
up to St. Louis by boat-loads. They were carried on 
stretchers up through our streets to the hospitals. The 
business men, merchants, clerks, manufacturers, bankers 
and artisans of various crafts helped bear along these 
ghastly burdens. Young men, the flower of the north- 
western States, had been maimed, crippled, shot to pieces 
in defence of the Union. We were horror-stricken, and 
with a depth of emotion which we had not before felt, 
pledged to the defence of our government "our lives, 
our fortunes, and our sacred honor." 

We now found that we had not sufficient room for 
these suffering heroes. Two large halls were immediately 
secured, transformed into hospitals, filled with the 
wounded, and furnished with sanitary stores, nurses 
and physicians. At last we had fifteen well-appointed 
hospitals in and around our city, with accommodation 
for six thousand patients. The largest was at Jefferson 
Barracks, which, within two years, received and treated 



292 A Border City in the Civil War 

more than eleven thousand sick and wounded soldiers. 
So out of necessity grew with ever accelerated pace this 
great work of beneficence. 

But the exigencies of the times called into being 
hospitals not only for sick and wounded soldiers, but 
also for refugees; in fact, for any, who, on account of 
the war, were rendered helpless. And in order by 
association of ideas to give the greatest possible cheer 
to those congregated in them, they were called Homes. 
This name was full of tender suggestion, especially to 
all of English or Scandinavian blood. 

The first Home established was for soldiers. It was 
on Walnut Street. It was opened in March, 1862. It 
was designated as a temporary rest for troops that had 
been discharged or furloughed. Since many of them 
had little or no money they were here gratuitously 
furnished with food and lodging. Those who were weak 
from sickness or wounds received the ministrations of 
skilful physicians and experienced nurses. They were 
also protected against sharpers, who, under the guise of 
friendship, would collect what little money might be 
due these war-worn heroes, and put it in their own 
pockets. Moreover, their intellectual, moral and 
spiritual wants were met in the Home. A reading-room 
was put into it. Many daily papers and religious 
journals came regularly to its table, while hundreds of 
volumes of good books placed upon its shelves allured 
the weary or convalescing soldiers to read. 

No one can measure the good done through the mani- 
fold appliances of that Home. During the war over 
seventy thousand soldiers enjoyed its hospitality. 
There they were helped over rough places; their diffi- 
culties that seemed to them like mountains vanished; 
they were nursed into strength and took on new heart 



Homes and Hospitals 293 

and hope; became in fact new men, and very many of 
them went back into the ranks, coiu'ageousl}' to fight to 
the finisli the battle for the preservation of the Union. 
Early in 1862 the Sanitary Commission also opened 
a Home on Elm Street, for refugees, of which we have 
already spoken in a previous chapter; and still another 
in 1863. These Homes were conducted on the same 
general principles as the Home for soldiers. A man of 
great excellence of character, Mr. Cavender, out of his 
deep sympathy for the forlorn refugees, voluntarily 
gave his entire time to the care of them. Thus the 
demand for loving, self-sacrificing toil for others always 
seemed to be met by some unselfish soul like his. 
• But the care of the needy among us was not for a 
moment left to chance volunteers. Not long after the 
Commission began its work, the Ladies Union Aid 
Society was formed. It was made up of the best and 
most efficient women of the city. Social distinctions 
were for the time being obliterated. The hearts of 
the rich and the poor were united by the common 
danger and by a common love of country. Any one 
who could do some useful service to suffering soldiers 
was welcomed by all. This society enlisted women, 
in different parts of the city, who met regularly in 
groups to prepare such comforts as were needed by our 
brave boys both in camp and hospital. It had its 
ramifications in all the loyal churches. Without a 
thought of denominational distinctions, patriotic women 
of all creeds or of no creed met to work for the armed 
defenders of the Union. They freely donated the 
material that they prepared for use. They scraped lint, 
knit socks, made under-garments, furnished beds for 
the sick in hospitals, and secured aid and employment 
for the wives of soldiers. 



294 A Border City in the Civil War 

Out from the ranks of these women came many of 
our most efficient hospital nurses. Miss Dix, by whom, 
or by some deputy of hers, ah nurses must be approved, 
had appointed as her agent in St. Louis, Mr. Yeatman, 
president of the Sanitary Commission. On account of 
his position he had unusual opportunities for observing 
among volunteer helpers those best qualified for stated 
and official service, and his selections were eminently 
wise. 

No one could be a candidate for this honor unless she 
was between twenty-five and fifty years old, had good 
health, and was cheerful in disposition, without frivolity. 
And her official entrance upon the work of nursing 
hardly robbed her of the blessing of gratuitous patriotic 
service, since the compensation was twelve dollars a 
month and her keep. How does that strike a profes- 
sional nurse of to-day? 

But the spirit of helpfulness was not confined to 
special organizations; it seemed quite universal. Sepa- 
rate -households planned and carried out benevolent 
enterprises to aid soldiers in the camps around the 
city. These soldiers were generally intelligent; many 
of them were from our academies and colleges. They 
were always glad to get good papers and magazines. 
In many households all such reading matter was care- 
fully saved for them. At times when regiments of 
soldiers marched by our doors it was handed to them. 
They received it with avidity and often answered the 
attention bestowed upon them with hearty cheers. 

But the distinctive classes of the needy gave rise to 
specialization on their behalf. Some expended their 
energies in helping white refugees, others in caring for 
the freedmen; the efforts of the latter resulted in the 
organization of the Freedmen's Relief Society, in 1863. 



Homes and Hospitals 295 

But all lines of special effort were generously aided by 
the Sanitary Commission. It was the central, controlling 
energy, and directed by it, the multiplied benevolent 
agencies worked in perfect harmony. They simply 
divided the labor that it might be more thoroughly 
done. The work was one, and behind all its multifarious 
details there was one spirit and one purpose. 

But, however tempting the subject may be, I must 
not undertake to write even an outline history of the 
Western Sanitary Commission. This would require a 
volume, and it would embrace much that does not 
distinctively belong to our city. And yet we all bore 
some humble part in its magnificent work, and that work 
was all wrought before our eyes. But the country at 
large contributed to it, and the Federal government 
supported it with a liberal hand. In illustration of this 
take a single example. In opening the Home for the 
Refugees, the Commission expended tliree thousand 
dollars, the general government two thousand dollars. 
This is a fair specimen of the whole. All the generals 
of the Western Department heartily sustained it. So 
did the Secretary of War, and also Grant and Shei*man. 

I cannot refrain from giving a hint of the source, 
nature, and extent of the contributions, which the 
people poured out to help the Commission in its benevo- 
lent and patriotic work. Donations came from all the 
Northern States, especially, as might have been antici- 
pated, from Michigan and the Northwest; but Phila- 
delphia, New York, Providence and Boston were 
specially lavish in their gifts. They contributed much 
money, but also sent in boxes vast quantities of blankets, 
and bed-linen, of underwear and all sorts of comforts 
for camps and hospitals. By January, 1864, more than 
two hundred thousand dollars in cash had been received, 



296 A Border City in the Civil War 

of which St. Louis and Missouri had donated more than 
half; while the distant States of California and Massa- 
chusetts had each contributed fifty thousand dollars. 
But one million five hundred thousand dollars worth of 
sanitary supplies and hospital comforts had come to 
hand. From first to last the Commission received and 
distributed three million five hundred thousand dollars 
worth of useful articles, and almost a million of money, 
gladly given by the people. Among the cities of the 
Republic, the largest givers were Boston and St, Louis, 

But if possible, let us get a bird's-eye view of the 
manner in which these liberal donations were used. 
We have already seen how they made possible 
the founding and equipment of the various hospitals 
and Homes at St. Louis, But great as the work was 
there, it was still greater in the regions beyond. As 
early as October, 1861, the Sanitary Commission, under 
an order from General Fremont, fitted up two hospital 
cars, on the Pacific Railroad, with berths, nurses and all 
necessary arrangements for cooking. So far as I can 
discover, these were the first hospital cars in the United 
States, and they proved to be exceedingly useful. 

After the battle of Fort Donelson, in February, 
1862, the Commission, striking hands with the medical 
staff of the army, did all that they could to succor the 
wounded, and to save the many who were ill from 
exposure in the open field to a driving storm of snow 
and sleet. One of the Commission, taking with him a 
large quantity of sanitary stores, went down to Cairo 
and Paducah, accompanied by a delegation of phj^sicians, 
nurses and members of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, 
At Paducah, whither many of the sick and wounded 
had been sent, the volunteer helpers from St, Louis 
were courteously received by Medical Director Sim- 



Homes and Hospitals 297 

monds. He put at their disposal the steamboat, " Ben 
Franklin," and filled it with wounded soldiers to be 
carried to St. Louis. On their way thither these suffering 
soldiers were tenderly nursed. The steamer became a 
hospital. Out of this experience naturally emerged a 
most practical and beneficient institution, the Floating 
Hospital. The Western Sanitary Commission took up 
this new idea. They at once purchased and fitted up 
the "City of Louisiana," at a cost of three thousand 
dollars. A year later the government purchased her, 
put into her five hundred beds, and, in honor of the 
Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Army, 
named her, the "R. C. Wood." From time to time, as 
new exigencies arose, the commission added other 
steamers to their medical flotilla, until they had on the 
Mississippi four floating hospitals. As our armies and 
gunboats moved down the river, these floating asylums 
for the sick and wounded were always close at hand, 
ready to receive and aid with all their resources those 
disabled by disease or by shot and shell. 

The Commission also devised the flying hospital, or 
hospital on wheels. It was furnished with cots and 
medical stores. It could accompany an army on the 
march and be always close at hand promptly to meet 
urgent needs whenever any unlooked-for disaster might 
come. This hospital did considerable service in Missouri, 
and was warmly commended by Assistant Surgeon 
General W^ood. 

Nor must we fail to note the fact that the Commission 
not only planted hospitals and homes in St. Louis, but, 
acting in concert with the regular medical staff of the 
army, in all the principal cities captured by our armies 
on or near the Mississippi River. They struck hands 
with the United States Sanitary Commission in founding 



298 A Border City in the Civil War 

and equipping at Memphis ten hospitals. They sent 
sanitary supplies as far as Little Rock, the Red 
River, Nashville, Jackson, Miss., Chattanooga, Tenn., 
and Texas. Wherever there was any pressing need, 
workers from St. Louis, both men and women, were 
found. 

Mr. Yeatman himself often went down the river to 
superintend in person this ever-expanding work of 
benevolence. On one of his expeditions, he took to 
Grant's army, then engaged in the siege of Vicksburg, 
two hundred and fifty tons of sanitary suppUes. And 
dunii''' all that protracted siege, the floating hospitals 
fitted out by the Commission were just at hand. 

But the Commission did not confine itself wholly to 
the West, During the Peninsular Campaign by Mc- 
Clellan, they sent sanitary stores to Washington; and 
from May 1st to November 1st, 1864, forwarded to 
Sherman's army, operating in Georgia, supplies 
" amounting to hundreds of tons." Nor did they forget 
the starving prisoners at Andersonville, but sent them 
through General Sherman such stores as were impera- 
tively needed to alleviate their appalling miseries, 
although these gifts of mercy never reached their 
destination. When, however, at a later day, a goodly 
number of these prisoners were exchanged at Vicksburg, 
the same supplies were then distributed among them, 
and when they saw on the boxes the name of General 
Sherman, their joy was unbounded. 

But in this meagre sketch of the magnificent work of 
the Sanitary Commission, we wish in a few lines to give 
at least a hint of its efforts to meet in some measure 
the necessities of the freedmen outside of St. Louis. 
Between Cairo, 111., and Natchez, Miss., at least forty 
thousand of them were found that greatly needed help. 



Homes and Hospitals 299 

That whole region had been for months a battle-ground. 
Landowners had fled. Plantations were broken up. 
Slaves, happy in their new-found freedom, had followed 
our armies, looking upon them as their deliverers; yet 
bewildered as to what they were to do. Some Union 
generals, impeded by them, and lacking in humanity, 
treated them with cruelty. Especially was this true 
at Helena and Memphis, where they compelled the 
freedmen to work hard without compensation, while 
their families were left in extreme want. This to Mr. 
Yeatman was like a trumpet blast. He took hold of this 
new problem with marvellous energy. He appealed 
to the country for help. There was benevolent response 
from almost every quarter. Massachusetts especially 
sent in generous quantities both goods and money. 
Nor did St. Louis lag behind in her gifts. The replenished 
Commission sent to the hungry and ragged freedmen 
large supplies of both food and clothing; established 
hospitals for them in different places ; provided them 
with physicians, nurses and medicines; put a stop to 
the tyranny of inconsiderate or hard-hearted military 
officers; and established schools for them in which they 
were taught to read, and write, to add and substract, 
and to do properly the ordinary work of the kitchen and 
field. Mr. Yeatman went over all the territory where 
the men and women, sent out by the Commission, were 
working for the freedmen, and gave to them such sug- 
gestions and directions as in his judgment would render 
their work most beneficent and fruitful. He himself 
established for the freedmen a system of work on plan- 
tations around Vicksburg, which, before the close of the 
war, yielded the best results. On behalf of his project 
he appealed to the public through the press; laid it 
personally before the President and found for it an open 



300 A Border City in the Civil War 

ear and thus enlisted the government on its behalf. 
He had the qualities needed for dealing with an ignorant 
people just freed from bondage: sense, justice, and love. 

Still our cursory survey of the work of the Commis- 
sion would be quite incomplete without casting a glance 
at what they did for the white refugees in all that great 
region south of Missouri on both sides of the Mississippi 
River, Great as the number of these refugees was in 
St. Louis, it was far greater in that vast territory. 
There the Commission, as exigencies arose, selected, 
one after another, ten central points, each of which was 
made headquarters for all the region contiguous to it. 
At these centres they founded temporary hospitals, 
and opened schools for the refugees. They fed, clothed, 
taught and nursed them, and, so far as practicable, put 
them to work. It takes but a moment to write this, but 
these words are a symbol representing a prodigious 
amount of patient, self-sacrificing toil. 

Moreover, the Soldiers' Home had proved itself to be 
so great a blessing in St. Louis, that the Commission 
established five others in the States to the south con- 
quered by our armies. And up to December, 18G5, all 
these Homes, including the one in our city, had enter- 
tained without charge four hundred and twenty-one 
thousand six hundred and sixteen soldiers; furnished 
them nine hundred and eighty-two thousand five hun- 
dred and ninety-two meals, and four hundred and ten 
thousand two hundred and fifty-two lodgings. 

In all this beneficent work the loyal inhabitants of 
St. Louis had a large share. We liberally contributed 
to it goods, money and service. But the demands upon 
us within our own gates were onerous and well-nigh 
exhausting. The time, strength and material resources 
of every one were laid under tribute; tribute which, for 



Homes and Hospitals 301 

the most part, was gladly paid. All Christian pastors 
and priests worked much in camps and hospitals. They 
conducted many public services, often preached, and 
incessantly ministered to the sick and dying. 

When volunteers began to gather in large numbers 
at St. Louis, in connection with other pastors of the 
city, I preached, as I had time and opportunity, in the 
camps. I was greeted by attentive, intelligent audiences. 
Many regiments were made up largely of Christian 
men who, while encamped, regularly maintained prayer 
meetings. There was one regiment from Illinois, having 
in its ranks above a thousand young men, more than 
half of whom read their Greek Testaments. 

But we met them for religious services not only in 
camp, but also in buildings in the city specially pro- 
vided for that purpose. 

In an empty store on Fourth Street, on the ground 
floor, there were long tables. For many days, at the 
noon hour, soldiers passing through the city or tem- 
porarily stopping there, marched in and sat down at 
those tables for their midday meal. I was asked by 
Drs. Eliot and Post to take my turn with them in 
preaching to these soldiers as they ate. To this I con- 
sented, but found it a difficult task. I stood at the 
head of the table and delivered my message, while the 
militant audience consumed their rations of hardtack, 
bacon and coffee. They had tin plates, cups and spoons, 
and cheap iron knives; and though they were always 
respectful, and declared that they wanted and enjoyed 
the preaching, the clatter of their metal dishes was so 
loud and incessant, that it disturbed not a little my 
course of thought. But I did my best. 

When the hospitals were opened I found in them the 
largest opportunities to labor on behalf of the soldiers. 



302 A Border City in the Civil War 

For a time I worked a part of almost every day in the 
Sisters' Hospital. For years it had been cared for by 
the Sisters of Charity; but for the time being it was 
thrown open for the use of the government. Here I 
often found sick and wounded men from both of the 
contending armies; Federal and Confederate soldiers, 
the blue and the gray, here lay peacefully side by side. 
For the time at least their animosity was gone. Suffer- 
ing had made them kin. The heart of the man in gray 
was touched, when he saw that he was as carefully nursed 
as the man in blue. 

In my ministrations to suffering Southerners, I care- 
fully avoided all allusion to the war, and our political 
differences. But, apparently astonished at the kindness 
shown them, many of them would broach some question 
concerning the national conflict, and when they did so, 
I always answered their queries as best I could. On 
one point most of them were set, and that was that the 
North began the war, I assured them that in this they 
were altogether in error, and rehearsed to them the 
historical facts. They said that they could hardly 
believe my statement, since they had been often told 
the exact contrary. 

I met in that hospital a Confederate soldier from one 
of the western counties of Arkansas. His name was 
Anderson. He had small, shining black eyes, peeping 
out from under black eyebrows; long, heavy, black 
whiskers, unkempt and begrimed, needing the cleansing 
power of soap and water; thick, shocky black hair that 
hung down to his shoulders, and was as coarse as the 
hair on a horse's tail. When I first saw him I had a 
strong desire to have a talk with a man so peculiar and 
who bore my surname. While he could neither read 
nor write, I found him intelligent on all matters per- 



Homes and Hospitals 303 

taining to his county, but about things outside of his 
own immediate neighborhood, he knew next to nothing. 
He never had been away from home before. Having 
been taken prisoner, he was compelled to travel. Con- 
trary to his will he had begun to see more of the world. 
But he was absolutely sure that the "Yanks " had 
begun the "wicked war." He informed me, that the 
North first fired on the South. Nor could I convince him 
of his error. He was ignorant, and a hot Southerner. 
His under jaw was square and each ropy hair springing 
out of his tawny scalp looked as though it were clinched 
on the inside of his skull. A face so strange and strong, 
I can never forget. 

A few days later, in the same hospital, I was urgently 
asked by a man about thirty-five years of age to help 
him solve a question of conscience. He was a Quaker 
by birth and conviction. He had imbibed with his 
mother's milk the notion that war was prohibited by 
the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." By educa- 
tion it had been interwoven with all his thinking. But 
having at the same time a great abhorrence of human 
bondage, when, in his neighborhood, scores of men 
were enlisting to fight a Confederacy, the corner-stone 
of which had been boastfully declared to be African 
slavery, the doctrine that war was murder sank so 
completely into the background that, for a time, he 
became quite unconscious of it. Aflame with patriotism, 
along with his neighbors, he volunteered to fight the 
enemies of the Union. Then came the long, toilsome 
days of military drill, and the march southward to meet 
the foe in battle. He had much time for thought. 
As he reflected, the conviction that no war is justifiable, 
which, for a season, had been submerged, came up out 
of the depths of his subconsciousness and reasserted 



304 A Border City in the Civil War 

itself. He began to feel utterly out of place. He 
had taken a solemn oath to do what his conscience 
utterly forbade. He was in deep distress. There was 
no one to whom he could unbosom himself. He was 
among thousands of his countrymen, but felt absolutely 
alone. His regiment was ordered into battle. For 
hours with his comrades in arms he loaded and fired; 
but he could not shoot at his fellow men, so he shot into 
the air above their heads. But this was a violation of 
his oath. And after the battle was over and he had 
been sent to this hospital, what he had done tortured 
him. Conscience pierced him for having broken his 
oath as a soldier, although that same conscience had 
driven him to break it. In his agony of spirit he pitifully 
appealed to me. "What shall I do? What can I 
do? " I dealt with him honestly. I told him that he 
had no moral right to violate his conscience. But 
since his conscience had put him between two fires, it 
was his duty to tell his story to the military authorities, 
and ask to be discharged from the army. I assured 
him that they had no wish to compel men to fight, who 
could not do so with a good conscience. Still he seemed 
to be greatly distressed to think that, contrary to his 
oath, he had shot into the air, during that battle. But 
he did as I advised him to do, and a few days afterwards 
I heard that, on the ground of his conscientious scruples, 
he had been honorably dismissed from his regiment. 

About this time, March, 1862, I was asked to take 
the oversight of the religious work in the Fifth Street 
Hospital. It became my duty to supply the sick and 
wounded there with religious papers and books. These 
were freely contributed by loyal Christian families. A 
book from my own library, "The Signet Ring," was very 
popular among the soldiers. It is a good book still, but 



Homes and Hospitals 305 

scarcely known to the present generation. It was also 
incumbent on me to provide for religious services in the 
hospital. These were held in the different wards, but 
especially in those wards where were gathered the 
convalescents, and those suffering from the milder 
forms of disease. The services were very simple and 
brief. A few words of Scripture were read, some joyful 
hymn was sung, and a prayer was poured out from the 
heart. Then a short sermon followed, presenting some 
truth that comforted and helped those that were in 
trouble. These services were conducted sometimes by 
chaplains of regiments, often by the different pastors 
of the city, and were frequently marked by unusual 
fervor. The eagerness with which the sick and wounded 
men listened was wonderful. They were reminded of 
their churches at home, of loved ones with whom they 
had often met; their hearts were full and the irrepressible 
tears started. At times dm'ing those moments of service 
heaven and earth seemed to meet and blend. 

There were in this hospital, as in all the rest, some 
professional women nurses, and they were very efficient. 
They did their work not only with technical skill, but 
they had that prime quality that must ever characterize 
nurses of the highest order, heartfelt sympathy with 
those whose sufferings they strove to alleviate. But in 
addition to these, there were many volunteer nurses, 
women, who, by regular appointment, were there at 
all hours of the day and night. They were ready to do 
an}^ service within their power. They worked under the 
direction of the physicians and in harmony with the 
professional nurses. They often brought with them, 
from their own household stores, such appetizing foods 
as reminded the sick soldiers of the tender nursing that 
in homes far away they had sometimes received from 



306 A Border City in the Civil War 

mother or sister. A little gruel or soup, or fruit, or 
jelly, how grateful to the palate, and cheering to the 
spirit! The very thought of it started many a sick 
soldier boy on the road to health and further service 
in the field. 

The tender sympathy which these women lavished on 
the suffering was often more healing than medicine. 
And when, sitting by the bedside of languishing heroes, 
sick it may be even unto death, they wrote letters for 
them to the loved ones at home, these missives throbbed 
with a mother's love and were often wet with a mother's 
tears. 

An incident of that kind comes vividly to mind as I 
write. A young man from Indiana lay on his death-bed. 
He was about twenty-two years old and fully six feet 
in height. He was muscular and strong. But pneumonia 
had seized upon him and had baffled the best skill of 
the surgeon. He had been told that he could not live 
more than five or six hours longer. But he was a 
Christian and had hope of a glorious immortality. In 
the final arrangement of his affairs he was as calm in 
spirit as if he were going out on dress parade. By his 
cot sat a young mother. He asked her to write to his 
family and tell them what to do with his things. She 
wrote as he suggested, her heart almost bursting with 
emotion. He gave one thing to this sister, another to 
that brother, and last of all he said, "I give Jeff. C. 
Davis to my youngest brother." "But what is Jeff. 
C. Davis? " asked the one who was writing for him his 
last letter, and there were tears in her voice. He replied, 
a smile playing around his lips, "It is my colt. I named 
him for General Davis, who is an Indianian and very 
popular in our State." 

It was no formal letter which she penned in that 



Homes and Hospitals 307 

sad hour. Into its words and sentences went the glowing 
sympathy of a mother's heart. But it is only an example 
of thousands of others. When the letter was finished, 
the face of the young man betokened the most perfect 
satisfaction. His work was done. He was ready to 
depart. I prayed with him. I left him with a smile 
on his face. He was so cheerful that I began to think 
that the surgeon had made a mistake; but when I 
returned a few hours afterwards, ''he was not, for God 
took him." 

In addition to the above it is with no little pleasure 
that I give one incident among many that vividly 
reveal the patriotic devotion of the rank and file of 
our army. Near the beginning of the war, I was called 
one night to many a volunteer cavalry soldier. Imme- 
diately after, he rode away under the command of. 
Zagonyi, to Springfield, Missouri. In entering that city 
a charge was made between two lines of Confederate 
soldiers, and my friend was shot. For several hours 
he lay on the frosty ground, slowly bleeding; and 
then, faint and exhausted, he was put into an army 
wagon which went jolting over rough roads to Rolla, 
and from there he was sent by the cars to St. Louis. I 
found him in the hospital, so changed that I did not at 
once recognize him. But when all doubt as to his 
identity was brushed away, he pathetically told me the 
story of his suffering. He had been shot through the 
shoulder; the bone had been shattered; pieces of it 
had protruded from the wound and had been removed. 
He had preserved them. They were more precious to 
him than diamonds. He kept them neatly wrapped in 
a paper under his pillow. With his trembling, emaciated 
hand he took them out slowly and carefully unwrapped 
them and showed them to me. Then wrapping them 



808 A Border City in the Civil War 

up again, he put them back under his pillow, and look- 
ing up, his eye began to gleam as he said: "The doctors 
say that I cannot recover. I think that they are mis- 
taken. I shall get well. You see that it is the left 
shoulder that is wounded. When it heals it will be stiff, 
but I can still hold the reins of my horse in my left hand ; 
and then, sir," with great emphasis for an apparently 
dying man, he added, "I have one more shoulder for 
my country." He did live to fight many a hard battle 
thereafter. But I could never forget those brave, 
burning words, words instinct with self-sacrifice: "Then, 
sir, I have one more shoulder for my country." 

In closing this inadequate sketch of our hospitals, I 
wish gratefully to call attention to the fact that they 
were an immeasurable blessing to St. Louis. They 
marvellously developed the benevolence of the city. 
By them scores of men and women were lifted up out 
of their selfishness. In ministering to those in need 
they forgot themselves. In spite of all the evils of the 
war, it led more people in our city to live in some measure 
the life of Christ than any other influence had ever 
before done. The best exhibition of Christianity ever 
witnessed within our gates was that band of devoted 
workers seen every day and night in the camps and 
hospitals. Hundreds of women whose Christian activities 
had never before gone beyond the family or the individual 
church, now like their divine Lord went about doing 
good. Like the good Samaritan, they had compassion 
upon all that they found in distress, irrespective of 
uationahty or creed. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY SANITARY FAIR 

As the war went on, the demands on the Western 
Sanitary Commission became enormous. At the close 
of 1863 and the beginning of 1864 the Commission 
fomid its treasury well nigh empty. Something must 
be done to replenish it. After careful deliberation, the 
Commission decided to hold a fair, believing that thereby 
it could secure the funds required for its vastly important 
work. So on February 1st, 1864, it inaugurated this 
popular movement. 

General William Starke Rosecrans, who, in January, 
had succeeded General Schofield in command of the 
Department of Missouri, was made president of the Fair. 
From the start the project was popular. In St. Louis 
the people took hold of it with marked enthusiasm. 
They were ready to work and give to make it a success. 
That thoroughness might characterize all that was done 
they carefully organized their forces. They divided 
among themselves the multifarious tasks to be per- 
formed. They appointed committees to look after every 
important detail, and to report to the central authority. 
So amid the multiplicity of things there was unity and 
order. It was exhilarating to see a great community 
so stirred up in the doing of a patriotic and benevolent 
work, that, for a time, all conventionahties of society 
and distinctions of race or creed were forgotten. Protes- 



310 A Border City in the Civil War 

tant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, Europeans and 
Americans, whites and blacks met, and elbowed, and 
emulated each other in working for the soldiers of 
the Union. 

But a work so great could not be done by our city 
alone, however willing and diligent we might be; so, 
the Commission appealed for help to the people of other 
cities and States, The response was prompt and exceed- 
ingly generous. Money and large consignments of 
useful articles to be sold at the Fair came from Boston, 
Salem, Worcester, Providence, New Bedford, New 
Haven, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Nevada 
(then a remote mining territory), England and Germany. 
Other givers also in justice should be mentioned, but 
we name these merely to show how cosmopolitan the 
donations to the Fair were. Helping hands were 
stretched across the sea to us. Wars on behalf of the 
oppressed are wars of progress, and make kin the 
lovers of righteousness in all the nations. 

But among the givers St. Louis herself ranked with 
the first. Her business men contributed large amounts 
of goods; her families, vast numbers of salable articles 
made in their homes; her artists and lovers of art, 
valuable paintings, etchings, and engravings; and 
some liberally gave money. 

When the Fair opened on May 17th, there was in its 
treasury two hundred thousand dollars in cash, which 
had been contributed by men in St. Louis and in dif- 
ferent parts of the Union, 

The building for the Fair was on Twelfth Street. It 
was five hundred feet long and extended from St. Charles 
to Olive Street, It had wings on Locust Street, each 
one hundred feet by fifty-four. In the centre of the 
building was an octagon seventy-five feet in diameter 



Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair 311 

and fifty feet high. This octagon was lavishly decorated 
with mottoes, national banners, battle trophies, such as 
flags and weapons captured from the enemy, and arbors 
of evergreens and flowers. 

The building was divided into various departments. 
One department was devoted to the refugees. Since 
they were a special object of charity and so much 
was needed adequately to meet their wants, and the 
sympathies of so many were specially drawn out 
to them, it seemed quite necessary to devote a gen- 
erous space in the building to their particular benefit. 
The same was true of the freedmen, and a department 
was assigned to those who were especially interested 
in meeting their wants and promoting their general 
welfare. 

The Germans, being so large a part of our population, 
and so ardently devoted to the maintenance of the 
Union, were given a large space in the building, where 
they patriotically sold lager beer, and a host of people 
patriotically drank it. Very many connected with the 
Fair strongly objected to this, but being in the minority 
were unable to prevent it. 

During the days of preparation for the Fair a com- 
mittee was appointed to meet a delegation from our 
German fellow-citizens and if possible persuade them 
to give up the project of selling beer at the Fair. I 
was chairman, and presented as well as I could the 
earnest desire of the temperance people. The German, 
who was the spokesman of his delegation, understood 
English quite perfectly, but could not speak it very 
well. He had not been at all persuaded by the con- 
siderations that I had presented, and among other 
things that he vehemently urged in reply was this: 
" Zhentelmen," said he, " lager peer vill not make 



312 A Border City in the Civil War 

men trunk; it vill not, it vill not. Zhentelmen, and ef 
any one gets trunk, we have already, zhentelmen, 
engaged the police to take him to de calaboose." So 
this, and every effort that we put forth to rid the Fair 
of lager beer, proved abortive; and it was sold, innumer- 
able kegs of it, to alleviate the sufferings of our soldiers. 
But in justice it ought to be added that no one became 
so intoxicated that it was necessary to take him to the 
calaboose. 

But we can only name the multiplied departments 
and varied attractions of this famous Fair. It had its 
curiosity shop, and skating park; its floral park and 
gallery of fine arts; its counters on which all kinds of 
merchandise were offered for sale; its separate rooms 
for war trophies, agricultural implements, sewing 
machines, for the sale of works of art, and for the 
exhibition of gold and silver bars from Nevada. There 
were also refreshment saloons or restaurants, the New 
England, and the Holland kitchen, where patriotic women 
cooked and washed dishes for the Union and where the 
hungry ate for the same lofty purpose. And then there 
were confectioners' counters, a cafe, and an improvised 
theatre, where were presented various dramas and other 
public amusements. Patriotism, the underlying motive 
of it, lifted up and glorified all the drudgery and all the 
innocent pastimes connected with it. 

The evenings at the Fair were made specially attract- 
ive. Then the men that had been absorbed in business 
during the day came with their famihes. The great 
building was lighted as brilliantly as it could be with 
gas. Electric lights had not yet appeared. In the 
gallery trained bands skilfully discoursed patriotic 
music. Often the commanding general with his staff, 
in their brightest uniform, was present. It is wonderful 



Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair 313 

how the crowd is charmed by military clothes! The 
names of the Union generals together with the names 
of the battles that they had fought were blazoned on the 
walls, and the Stars and Stripes hung out everywhere, 
while women from the first families of the city were 
busy selling all sorts of useful articles. No one who 
shared in those festivities, who saw and heard and 
drank in the spirit of that patriotic throng can ever 
forget it. 

One feature was specially novel. The colored soldiers, 
enlisted and drilled under the direction of General 
Schofield, during the Fair constantly did guard duty. 
They also distinguished themselves, and greatly com- 
mended themselves to all right-minded people, by 
liberally contributing from their meagre wages to aid 
the refugees and freedmen. Colored people also freely 
visited the Fair and made purchases. It looked like a 
revolution when we saw, in a slave State, white women 
of high social standing, without complaint or a murmur, 
sell articles to colored purchasers. Once or twice indeed 
some whites took offence at this radical and apparently 
abrupt change from the old order of things, but on the 
whole the sentiment toward the colored people was 
humane, reasonable, and liberal. 

The Fair proved a great financial success. Its net 
proceeds were five hundred and fifty-four thousand 
five hundred and ninety-one dollars, at least three 
dollars and fifty cents for each inhabitant of our city; 
but the result was largely due to contributors beyond 
our borders; nevertheless it can be said of St. Louis 
that she did the work which made this great success 
possible, and at the same time liberally gave to the 
Fair both merchandise and money. The large amount 
of money realized, together with other donations, 



314 A Border City in the Civil War 

enabled the Sanitary Commission to complete its great 
work. In addition to the sums of money that it directly 
disbursed to aid our armies, it appropriated to the 
Ladies' Union Aid Society fifty thousand dollars for 
hospital work and the assistance of soldiers' families. 
It also devoted one thousand dollars per month to the 
aid of the freedmen, and established at Webster, ten 
miles west of the city, a Soldiers' Orphans' Home, at 
a cost from first to last of over forty thousand dollars. 
The Home accommodated one hundred and fifty father- 
less children. 

But the Fair was a blessing not only to refugees and 
freedmen, to the sick and wounded in hospitals, to the 
widows and orphans of our slain heroes, but it was also 
a measureless boon to St. Louis. It was one more 
mighty agenc}'' for curing us of our selfishness. For a 
time at least it broke in upon our commercialism, and 
led us to think of others and to do something for their 
welfare. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

A DARK PLOT THWARTED 

When Major-General Rosecrans, on January 30th, 
1864, assumed command of the Department of Missouri, 
he delivered to his predecessor, General Schofield, a com- 
plimentary farewell address. He warmly commended 
him for what he had done in our State, and congratulated 
him that he was about to take part in great campaigns. 
It was no flattery, but a candid, sincere utterance of 
which the recipient was altogether worthy. It was an 
honor both to him who uttered it and to him on whom 
it was bestowed. 

General Rosecrans himself came to us from active 
campaigning, where he had rendered the most patriotic 
and arduous service, but had failed in attaining the 
highest success. At the eleventh hour he had lost the 
great and hotly contested battle of Chickamauga by 
giving a blundering order to one of his subordinate 
generals.^ His intimate friends thought that ever after 
he carried in his face the sadness of that defeat. But 
his spirit was not soured. He was still ready to serve 
his country in any way that he could, and in any position 
to which he might be called. So he could heartily con- 
gratulate one, then subordinate in rank, upon entering 
the service that he had been compelled to abandon, 
while he himself cheerfully took up the military 

» Fiske, The Miss. Valley in the Civil War, p. 270. 



316 A Border City in the Civil War 

administration of the most distracted region in the 
Union. 

We have aheady seen him fihing the office of president 
of the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, and doing all 
that he could to promote its interests by being present 
evenings with his staff. To those who did not, or could 
not, look below the surface, the battle in Missouri for 
the Union seemed to have been fought out. So, I am 
sure, most of the loyal in St. Louis at that time regarded 
it. But the general, and a few of the inner circle, already 
had an inkling of a deep-laid plot to promote the rebel- 
lion of the Southern States and if possible to make it 
successful. They were persuaded that the surface of 
things was deceptive; that beneath the dead ashes 
there were smouldering fires that might suddenly 
burst out into flame; that there never had been a more 
urgent demand for diligence than at that hour of super- 
ficial quiet. 

Having found a clue to the furtive foe, the general, 
through wisely chosen and trusted lieutenants, followed 
it up. He discreetly kept his own counsels. He was 
sleeplessly persistent. His adroit agents or spies wormed 
themselves into the confidence of the clandestine ene- 
mies of the Republic, joined their secret organization 
and learned all their plots; at the same time they 
kept constantly in touch with their chief, by whom they 
were directed. They reported to him each startling fact 
that they unearthed. One discovery quickly led to 
another. To be sure the existence of a hostile secret 
organization had been hazily known for many months, 
but through the efforts of General Rosecrans its extensive 
ramifications were traced out, and its treasonable designs 
were laid bare. It proved to be the most formidable 
secret political organization that probably ever existed 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 317 

in America; it was conceived in treason; its avowed 
object was the dismemberment of the Union, the 
overthrow of the government of the United States. Its 
members were bound by oath to effect this nefarious 
purpose. They were to hesitate at no crime in order 
to reach their end. Rather than fail in it, they swore 
that they would commit perjury, arson, pillage, assas- 
sination. The penalty for disobedience of any com- 
mand, even one that demanded the committing of 
these diabolical crimes, was death. 

The organization, while one brotherhood, bore in 
different localities different names: the most notorious 
of which were: " The Knights of the Golden Circle," 
" The Order of American Knights," " The Order of 
the Star," and " The Sons of Liberty." ^ 

Its ramifications were found both north and south 
of Mason and Dixon's line. It claimed in Missouri 
twenty-five thousand members; in Illinois one hundred 
and forty thousand; in Indiana one hundred thousand; 
in Ohio eighty thousand ; in Kentucky seventy thousand ; 
and some in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and 
Maryland. Vallandigham of Ohio was supreme com- 
mander of the northern wing of this secret organization, 
while General Sterling Price was the supreme commander 
of the southern wing. The northern wing for many 
months had done what it could to supply the rebels 
with provisions and war material; it had also done for 
them the work of spying, keeping them informed as 
to what was transpiring in the North. It was still 
committing these treasonable acts, and even a few 
officers in our army were suspected of lending a hand 
to help on this villainous work. And, in that summer 
of 1864, the northern part of this oath-bound society 

» Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VIII, Ch. 1. 



318 A Border City in the Civil War 

had planned to put forth a united and desperate effort 
to aid the rebels in invading and revolutionizing the 
northern States of the Middle West ^ 

Now all this our general had quietly ferreted out. 
The knowledge acquired by his skilful manipulation 
was of vast importance not only to our city and State, 
but also to the general government. All the evidence 
pertaining to this secret organization was carefully 
written out and transmitted to President Lincoln. It 
covered one thousand pages of foolscap. 

But at first only a very few of the loyal of St. Louis, 
and, in fact, of the nation, had any definite knowledge 
of the existence of this secret, insidious foe. The great 
mass of our fellow-citizens stood in blissful ignorance 
over a destructive mine, that might at any moment be 
exploded. But thanks to our general, the President 
and his counsellors knew it more perfectly than here- 
tofore. He made known what he had recently discovered 
to a few in our city in whom he reposed special con- 
fidence. He also revealed it to his most trusted lieu- 
tenants. And what was all-important to us, he knew 
the facts of the whole case probably more thoroughly 
than any loyal man in the nation. And this knowledge 
shaped every order that he issued and inspired his 
most weighty acts. 

It was still necessary to garrison all parts of the State. 
Those in command of the garrisons were instructed to 
keep the sharpest possible watch of all whose loyalty 
was suspected; to break up all rendezvous of such men 
wherever found; to permit no illicit gatherings of 
secessionists, and to deprive of arms all who expressed 
sympathy with the rebellion. Thus the general laid a 
strong, repressive hand upon " The Knights of the 

1 W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, p. 4, p. 506. 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 319 

Golden Circle " in our State. And before our story 
ends we shall see how wise such action was. 

Evidently with his eye on this secret fraternity of 
the disloyal, that a little later he so fully unearthed, 
on March 1st, he forbade any one to take negroes from 
the State, but demanded that by every legitimate 
method they should be encouraged to enlist as soldiers. 
He declared that in all such enlistments the property 
rights of the master would be guarded ; the government 
would compensate him for his chattels, but the slaves 
by their enlistment would become freemen. The general 
felt that he should soon need, to circumvent any threat- 
ened disloyal uprising, as many soldiers as he could 
secure, whether they were white or black. 

To diminish as far as possible the incitement of the 
secretly disloyal to open rebellion, on the 26th of March, 
he prohibited the circulation, in the Department of 
Missouri, of the Metropolitan Record. This was a bitter 
rebel sheet published in New York. It professed to be 
a Catholic family newspaper. On that account it was 
specially offensive to the general, who was a devout 
Catholic. He felt that by it not only was his country 
betrayed, but also his church was greatly misrepresented 
and traduced. He declared it to be "without ecclesias- 
tical sanction," and so "traitorous" that it could not 
be tolerated even by the most liberal interpretation of 
the freedom of the press. ^ Nor did he relish the fact 
that such a journal found so many eager readers in St. 
Louis and in the State at large. It was an alarming 
symptom of what was going on hidden from the public 
view. 

He also wisely and firmly corrected all illegal assump- 
tion of power on the part of his subordinates. Some 

» Moore's Reb. Rec, Vol. VIII, D. of E., pp. 66, 67. 



320 A Border City in the Civil War 

district commanders had assumed the right of forming 
sub-provost-marshal districts, and of appointing as- 
sistant provost marshals. They were true, patriotic 
men. Unquestionably they meant to do exactly right. 
But unwittingly they had transcended their powers. 
So by an order issued April 9th, the general called 
their attention to this unwarrantable usurpation of 
authority, and put a stop to it.^ He knew that he was 
called to cope with a foe burrowing in every part of the 
State, and so far as possible must know every subordinate 
officer, and must hold firmly in his own hand all the 
lines of authority. He felt that such unification of 
power alone could preserve the State from the grasp of 
a secret, ubiquitous foe. 

While the great mass of our fellow-citizens were not 
acquainted with the facts that were already in possession 
of our commander, rumors of a secret organization of 
the disloyal began to get abroad. This was just enough 
to fire the popular imagination, and to keep the people 
standing on tiptoe and craning their necks for news. 
And while filled with apprehension, they were not a 
little disturbed by seeing the troops that had been 
faithfully guarding our city sent elsewhere. The master- 
ful campaign of Grant in Virginia had begun. The 
general-in-chief and his great lieutenants, Sherman 
and Canby, were all clamorous for soldiers, and each 
in turn urgently pressed General Rosecrans to send them 
regiments from our State and city. He generously 
responded to these calls, until he had sent them nearly 
all of the troops in and around St. Louis. ^ When still 
further pressed for recruits by the generals in the field, 
knowing, as they did not, the powerful hostile secret 

1 W. R. S. 1, Vol XXXIV, p. 3, p. 107. 

2 W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, p. 3, pp. 42, 62, 107. 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 321 

organization intrenched in every part of our State, he 
pathetically pleaded that he could not safely spare any 
more; that he must not abandon, but must protect, 
the loyal citizens in the various counties of our common- 
wealth, who remained unflinchingly true to the Union 
while confronted with manifold perils. Grant, under- 
estimating our dangers and needs, and intent on 
his great work, accused Rosecrans of acting in violation 
of orders; but later he softened his accusation by 
merely declaring that in his judgment Rosecrans might 
have granted what he asked without so much corre- 
spondence.^ One marked fault of our general was his 
great proneness to irritating disputation. Nevertheless 
both of these patriotic generals were doing their level 
best. But we must bear in mind this denuding our 
city of troops, if we would justly appreciate the adminis- 
tration of General Rosecrans, and fully understand the 
events that soon followed. 

As early as March ugly rumors were flying about the 
city that small roving bands of guerrillas and bush- 
whackers had begun to appear in various parts of the 
State. Information concerning this daily became more 
definite. On the 3d of April, a lieutenant-colonel of the 
61st enrolled Missouri militia reported from Columbia that 
rebel officers and guerrillas had been coming into that 
region from the South and that they were re-enforced 
from Illinois. That patriotic Illinois was taking a 
hand in this clandestine, hostile invasion seemed to the 
uninitiated incredible. But the announcement was 
unequivocal, and the invaders were reported as oper- 
ating in small squads, robbing and pillaging in all 
directions. The disloyal in that part of the State, 
stirred to wrath on account of the enlistment of negroes 

' W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, p. 3, pp. 381, 416. 



322 A Border City in the Civil War 

in the army and the prospect of a draft, were re- 
ceiving these desperadoes hospitably. And along with 
these specific reports of devastation there was a 
persistent rumor that Price was coming with a large 
army.^ 

In the latter part of April it was declared that the 
rebels had planned to send into northern Missouri two 
brigades of cavalry and two of mounted infantry; and 
into the region about Rolla in the southern part of the 
State a column of guerrillas, together with the Confederate 
Seventh Missouri Regiment, to act in conjunction with 
some conspirators' organization^ of whose existence 
and character the public at large had received only an 
inkling. At the same time it was reported that three 
Confederate colonels, with over a hundred armed men, 
were on their way to northern Missouri and that most 
of these men were recruiting officers of the rebel army.^ 
We began to apprehend that the quietude that we had 
felt and in which we had prematurely rejoiced was only 
the stillness that precedes the fierce tornado. On the 
last day of April it was announced that rebel raids from 
the South into the central part of the State had begun, 
and that many of the citizens of Boonville, alarmed by 
these reports, were fleeing from their homes. Four days 
after, companies of Confederate cavalry, numbering 
from one to three hundred, were reported as advancing 
towards our State from the southwest, and, what was 
still more astounding and bewildering, it was rumored 
that there were rebel organizations in Illinois, and that 
Quantrell, with eight hundred men, was below Quincy 
between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. Of the 

1 W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, p. 30. 

2 W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, p. 3, pp. 197, 232, 238, 283, 344, 381. 

3 W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, pp. 283, 364. 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 323 

truth of this, Rosecrans was convinced, because he 
declared that he hoped to bring "these conspirators 
and i-aiders to grief." ^ On the 4th of May from eight 
to twelve hundred rebels were seen on Grand River, 
west of Neosho.^ Rumors multiplied. Marmaduke 
with eleven hundred men was observed going toward 
Missouri.^ Officers of the army on watch in the interior 
were persuaded that the State would be soon invaded 
by a powerful force.^ Before the middle of June this 
became clear to all. Reports of guerrillas drifting in 
from the South came from all parts of the State,^ coupled 
with the rumor that Price and his veteran host would 
soon be upon us. 

And what in the meantime were these invaders 
doing? They were endeavoring with but scant success 
to seciu-e recruits for the Confederate army. Their 
campaign had been shrewdly planned. They were in 
all parts of the commonwealth. They made their appeal 
to every one in sympathy with the rebellion. Every 
able-bodied man disloyal at heart had a chance now 
to show his colors, to come out into the open and enlist 
in the Confederate army. 

But at this supreme moment most of them thought 
it imprudent so to do. The Federal officers had never 
been so alert as now. Every concerted rebel movement 
in their respective districts was unerringly detected by 
them and at once checkmated. Every nest of seces- 
sionists was broken up. In every place the disloyal 
seemed to be in the grasp of an iron hand. They did 
not know that Rosecrans had in his possession all the 
facts in reference to their secret conspiracy, and that 
through his able and efficient subordinates, he was 

1 W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, p. 3, p. 416. « P. 443. 
» P. 674, « P. 626. 6 P. 4, pp. 216, 233, 277, 



324 A Border City in the Civil War 

succeeding even beyond his expectations in holding it 
in check. 

Still, his success was not complete; for while most of 
the disloyal of the State refused to enroll themselves as 
Confederate soldiers, they struck hands with their 
friends from the South in gathering commissary stores 
for the rebel army and especially for that part of it 
which was expected soon to appear within our borders. 
They regarded the property of Union men as legitimate 
plunder; so they gave themselves to pillage. Since 
these marauders were scattered in small bands all over 
the State beyond the immediate vicinity of St. Louis, 
it was impossible for our soldiers, however vigilant and 
alert, to defend against them the property of all 
Unionists. So they robbed here and plundered there,^ 
and in each case were quickly gone, no one knew where. 
Many of them, to be sure, came to grief. Some were 
taken prisoners; some were shot or hung; but most of 
them escaped to rob the defenceless, and to make night 
lurid with burning farmhouses and barns. 

If the depredators had confined themselves to plunder 
and arson, this orgy of lawlessness would happily have 
lacked its darkest colors. But they were joined by bush- 
whackers. These by birth or adoption were Missourians. 
They knew every Union man in their respective neigh- 
borhoods. They piloted the invaders to the homes of 
the loyal, that they might seize upon what they con- 
sidered their rightful prey. Many of them wore the 
uniform of United States soldiers,^ that they might 
deceive the Unionists. They had many grudges that 
they determined to feed fat. So to robbery was often 
added murder, cold-blooded, dastardly murder. All 

» W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, p. 4, pp. 216, 233, 277. 
« W. R. 8. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, p. 351. 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 325 

over Missouri, wherever these assassins, clothed in the 
loyal blue, dared to go, they shot down Union men. 
Many of these atrocities were unspeakably revolting. 
A bushwhacker rode up to the door of a peaceable old 
man, and asked for a drink of water. Whether the 
man regarded the thirsty traveller as a friend or enemy 
was never known; at all events, he brought him a cup 
of cold water, which he drank and then, handing back 
the cup, shot his benefactor dead. Not because he had 
previously injured him or any one else, but solely because 
amid many perils he had been a true Union man. 

The leader of a band of guerrillas, by the name of 
Anderson, ordered his gang to shoot into, and stop, a 
train of cars on the North Missouri Railroad. In one 
of the coaches he found twenty-two unarmed United 
States soldiers that, on account of sickness, had been 
furloughed. They were on their way to their homes and 
loved ones. He ordered them all out of the car, robbed 
them, stood them in a row and shot them. Some of 
the bodies he scalped, others he put across the track 
and ran the engine over them. He afterwards attacked 
a hundred and twenty men of the 39th Missouri Volun- 
teer Infantry, and having stampeded their horses, shot 
every one of them in cold blood. A few days later he 
was recognized by General Price as a Confederate 
captain, and with the gentle admonition that he must 
behave himself, was sent out to destroy railroads.^ 

But this carnage went on. It was the culmination 
of horrors in Missouri. All the barbarism that had 
gone before was now eclipsed. No other State of the 
South was so harried by lawless, irresponsible armed 
men. They did not wage war, and were entitled to none 
of the amenities of war as conducted by civilized nations. 

» W. R. S. 1, Vol. XLI, p. 1, p. 309. 



326 A Border City in the Civil War 

In St. Louis we were as yet safe. But we breakfasted 
and supped on horrors. Our hearts bled for our suffering 
brethren in the State. We did what we could to help 
them; but we were able to effect very little. The per- 
sistent rumors that a large army of invaders would 
soon sweep into our State from the South made us 
apprehensive that there might at no distant day be 
fighting at our own gates. 

At last these rumors of invasion were followed by the 
ingress of a veteran rebel force under the command of 
General Price. They came up from Arkansas. On the 
24th of September, General Shelby, one of Price's 
division commanders, with five thousand men and 
several pieces of artillery, was reported as just south of 
Pilot Knob, about eighty-five miles from St. Louis. 
It was the vanguard of an army of at least fifteen 
thousand men. 

Excitement ran high among us. We had no force 
at all adequate to our protection. As we have already 
seen, most of the soldiers in and around St. Louis had 
been sent to the front. Of this state of things, the rebel 
general had undoubtedly been informed. He expected 
to capture our city, and, comparatively defenceless as 
we were, we thought that his expectation would probably 
be realized ; at all events, we could not see why it should 
not be. Still we all deeply felt that we must do our 
utmost to save that for which we had so successfully 
contended for more than three years. 

Days before, when rumors of this invasion filled the 
air, and evidences multiphed that rumor would soon 
be transmuted into reality, at the earnest solicitation 
of our general, the military authorities at Washington 
had halted at Cairo, General A. J. Smith, with about 
fom- thousand five hundred infantry, when on his way 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 327 

to join General Sherman, and ordered him to turn back 
and assist Rosecrans in defending Missouri against the 
hostile forces of Price. To our great relief he came up 
to St. Louis, knowing full well that our city was the 
coveted prize and the objective point of the invading 
army. He wisely determined to stand, with his brave 
soldiers, between our comparatively defenceless city 
and the invaders when they should appear on our soil. 

But he was not our only defence. When the invading 
rebels were reported as being in the southern part of 
the State all the Home Guards of St. Louis were called 
out. Their whole strength was from four to five thousand 
men, none of whom had ever been under fire. Under 
the best officers that could be secured they were daily 
drilled. Moreover, some one hundred days' volunteers, 
then in Illinois, who had more than served out their 
time, with great alacrity and generosity came to our 
support, but refused under the circumstances to go 
beyond the city. They were willing to fight there on 
the defensive, but were unwilling to join in an offensive 
campaign, which might require long and perhaps 
forced marches. We could not blame them, and were 
glad that they stood ready with us to defend our city 
if it should be attacked. 

Now, with such force as was at hand the defensive 
campaign began. General Ewing was sent with about 
fifteen hundred men, half of whom were raw recruits, 
to Pilot Knob. He was ordered to hold that position 
until he found out as nearly as possible the number of 
the invading army. He was an able, gallant soldier, 
and we knew that he would do his utmost to carry out 
the command of his chief. 

At the same time. General Smith marched with his 
division of infantry in the direction of Pilot Knob. 



328 A Border City In the Civil War 

His movement was noted by Price, who, wishing to 
prevent him from uniting his force with that of General 
Ewing, sent General Shelby to oppose him and if possible 
check his advance. General Smith, having discovered 
that the enemy was moving west and north, was ordered 
to keep between the rebel force and St. Louis; so he 
retired behind the Meramec, a little river a few miles 
south of our city. 

In the meantime, full of anxiety, we at St. Louis 
waited for tidings from General Ewing. Hours seemed 
to be days, and days weeks. At last the thrilling news 
came. Ewing, after using part of his troops to guard 
a portion of the Iron Mountain Railroad, with a thousand 
men took his stand at Fort Davidson, a small field work 
in a valley surrounded by hills. It commanded the 
opening between the mountains through which Price 
had determined to pass. Throughout the whole of 
September 27th, he was terrifically assaulted by the 
invaders. While half of his thousand troops were 
undisciplined volunteers, he pluckily held his ground, 
repulsing the attacking army and killing and wounding 
fifteen hundred of them; while his own loss in killed, 
wounded and missing was only two hundred and fifty. 
A part of this number in the desperate fighting of the 
day had been taken prisoners and soon after were 
paroled. The general had triumphantly accomplished 
his object. He had developed the fact that the whole 
of Price's army was in the State, and for a whole day he 
had confronted and fought all of it except Shelby's 
division. 

The enemy, towards evening, had gained the slopes 
of the adjacent mountains and were planting batteries 
there which would command the fort that Ewing had 
so tenaciously and gallantly held. Fully eight thousand 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 329 

five hundred men with ten pieces of artillery were pre- 
pared to attack him in the morning. His position was 
no longer tenable. He therefore spiked his big guns, 
blew up his magazine, destroyed as far as he was able 
the supplies that he could not carry away, and with his 
field battery and what remained of his command 
retreated under the cover of darkness toward the Mer- 
amec valley. When his absence was discovered, the 
enemy pursued and greatly harassed him and his small 
intrepid army. The only wonder is that his whole 
command was not captured or destroyed; but he got 
upon a ridge of land between two creeks, and so was 
able, as he marched rapidly on, to repulse again and again 
the pursuing forces. He reached at last Harrison 
Station, a little more than a day's march from our city. 
Here he hastily occupied and extended some earthworks 
that had been thrown up by a regiment of militia, 
and with his raw troops, now become a Spartan band, 
withstood the assaulting army for thirty-six hours, 
when he was re-enforced by a detachment of cavalry. 
The enemy now withdrew. Ewing and his brave men 
escaped to Rolla. 

We were soon in possession of all the facts. A great 
burden was lifted from our hearts. The well-earned fame 
of Ewing and his dauntless little army floated on the 
lips of the multitude. But why Price did not take St. 
Louis was to us all an inscrutable mystery. He could 
have done so. He came for that very purpose, and 
yet passed by us to the west and north. He was a 
cautious general; as we have before observed, he never 
wished to attack unless he felt quite sure of victory. 
And like most overcautious commanders, he over- 
estimated the strength of his enemy. We know now, 
what we did not then, that he sent a spy to our city, 



330 A Border City in the Civil War 

one in whose judgment he placed the utmost confidence, 
who reported to him that we had for our defence two 
soldiers to his one. How that spy could have been so 
deceived is still an unsolved riddle. Price had almost 
two soldiers to our one. His soldiers were veterans; 
ours to a great extent were raw and undisciplined. 
With a little resolute, hard fighting he could have 
seized the prize which he and his troops so intensely 
coveted. But the God of nations and battles, who 
holds in his hand the hearts of kings and generals, had 
graciously decreed otherwise. 

It would be aside from my object to present in detail 
the events which belong to this invasion of our State. 
When we saw that the rebel general had evidently 
abandoned the purpose of attacking St. Louis its loyal 
inhabitants felt the intensest satisfaction. We now 
saw with increasing delight that the distance between 
the invaders and our city was daily growing greater; 
that General Price, overestimating the number of 
Union troops at Jefferson City, just as he had at St. 
Louis, passed on to the west and north, leaving the 
State capital unharmed. Soon the scattered detachments 
of Federal troops began to concentrate in his rear, and 
he hastened his march. Near the western border of 
the State, Union troops from Kansas joined in the pur- 
suit. Now in every battle the rebel forces met with 
defeat, and were soon driven from southwest Missouri 
into Arkansas, never more to return. This was the last 
invasion of our State. 

But in this invasion the rebel general was in some 
ways largely successful. He killed and wounded very 
many of our troops. During this campaign, though it 
lasted only a few days, there were more than forty 
skirmishes and about fifteen battles, some of them of 



A Dark Plot Thwarted 331 

considerable dimensions. Many places, either utterly 
without defence, or inadequately defended, were tem- 
porarily occupied, and plundered. Houses of Union 
men were burned. Railroad tracks were torn up, and 
the rails twisted and destroyed. Bridges, depots and 
warehouses were reduced to ashes. Horses, mules and 
wagons in large numbers were carried away. Vast 
quantities of commissary stores were ruthlessly gathered 
for the Confederate army. Price, in his report of this 
campaign, claims that he destroyed full ten million 
dollars worth of property. Perhaps that is an exag- 
geration ; but he marched by a circuitous route from one 
end of our State to the other, devastating a strip of 
territory about twenty miles wide. 

He, to be sure, lost heavily. Ten pieces of his artillery, 
two stand of colors, large numbers of wagons, mules 
and small arms, and nearly two thousand prisoners 
were captured by the Federals. Many of his men were 
slain in battle. He had also been compelled in his 
flight to burn very many of the wagons that he had 
confiscated, and to destroy much of his ill-gotten 
plunder. 

Moreover, he had utterly failed, politically. He 
anticipated the uprising of the " Order of American 
Knights," fully twenty-five thousand in number, and 
that most of them would join his army; he also expected 
to take St. Louis and swing our State into the Southern 
Confederacy; march into Illinois, where, re-enforced 
by the one hundred fifty thousand Knights of that 
State, and greeted by the Knights from Indiana and 
Ohio, with Vallandigham at their head, he hoped to 
establish a Northwestern Confederacy and put a stop 
to the war, which was being waged for the maintenance 
of the Union. But divine Providence had decreed that 



332 A Border City in the Civil War 

this audacious scheme of rebels and copperheads should 
never be realized. The effort to make the airy fabric 
of that dream a reality had been attended with devasta- 
tion, misery and blood, and had ended in inglorious 
defeat. 

But one sad outcome of the devastating march of 
Price's army was patent to every eye. Before it Union 
men with their families fled for their lives. Many of 
them hastily left their homes at night, lighted on their 
way by their flaming houses. Avoiding their pillaging 
foes, they made their way to St. Louis. They came in 
great numbers, and like the refugees that preceded them, 
were kindly received and abundantly cared for.^ 

» W. R. S. l,Vol. XLI, P. 1, pp. 307-340. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

NEGRO SCHOOLS 

Before the last invasion of our State by Price, 
a few of us became deeply interested in the educa- 
tion of the colored children of our city. No public 
school was open to them. Although the negroes of 
St. Louis owned taxable property, assessed year by year 
at a valuation of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and 
had long paid annually no inconsiderable school tax, 
it had been used for the education of white children 
alone. This rank injustice, one of the many shameful 
wrongs of chattel slavery, led the colored people to 
establish in difTerent parts of the city a few private 
schools for the education of their own children. By 
the flocking of contrabands into St. Louis the demand 
for colored schools had steadily grown more imperative. 
But these schools, founded and conducted by colored 
teachers, were of a very low grade. They were worthy 
of hearty commendation, as earnest efforts on the part 
of those who, though brought up in ignorance, desired 
better things for their children than they themselves had 
known. This ignorance yearning for knowledge, this 
stretching out of black hands toward the light, was an 
appeal too eloquent to be resisted. A goodly company 
of us determined to do what we could to lay the foun- 
dation for the future education of our colored popula- 
tion. It was already pretty clear that they were to be 



334 A Border City in the Civil War 

enfranchised citizens, and would need greater intelli- 
gence to enable them to discharge creditably their 
obligations to the community and the State. 

We saw at a glance what they needed was better 
schools and more of them. Larger and more cleanly 
rooms, more and better elementary books, and above all 
more thoroughly trained teachers were absolutely neces- 
sary in order to secure results even moderately satis- 
factory. To accomplish this, two things were demanded, 
money and self-sacrificing workers. The first could not 
be obtained from the public treasury. While the law 
compelled thrifty blacks to pay a school tax, it for- 
bade the use of a cent of it in educating black children. 
We and they had to bow before the majesty of the law. 
The only resort left us was private charity. But this 
did not fail us. The negro property holders not only 
cheerfully paid the school tax for the education of white 
children, but also generously contributed from their 
limited incomes to sustain the private schools for colored 
children. And loyal whites, who, from the beginning 
of the war, had nobly responded to a multitude of 
appeals for charity, by their bountiful gifts helped on 
this new educational enterprise, while a company of 
men and women came forward with alacrity to do the 
necessary work involved in this philanthropic project. 
They met with and counselled the colored school board; 
solicited and collected money; secured the donation of 
the necessary furnishings for the schoolrooms and the 
books and simple apparatus required ; encouraged pupils 
to attend the schools and inspirited teachers when in 
their new and difficult work their hearts began to fail 
them. 

I was chosen to examine the colored applicants for 
positions as teachers. In the months of September and 



Negro Schools 335 

October, I spent six half days in the work of examina- 
tion. It was a difficult task. These aspirants for the 
responsible office of teacher knew accurately very little. 
The superintendent of our city schools furnished me 
with the questions to be asked. But these questions 
were framed for white teachers of larger knowledge and 
greater discipline and were quite unfit for my purpose; 
however, being required to use them, I did my best in 
Saul's armor. 

During the war the price of gold in New York was 
quoted in every daily paper. It was one dollar and 
forty cents or one dollar and seventy-five cents or two 
dollars and twenty-five cents, that is, it took so much in 
paper currency to buy one dollar in gold. One of the 
questions designated for these examinations was:'' What 
is the leading industry of New York? " referring of course 
to the State of New York. It was a rather difficult 
question for any one to answer. I gave it to a bright- 
looking colored girl, as a part of her examination. Her 
answer was, "Buying and seUing gold." 

Out of the fourteen that I examined, male and 
female, I found four that showed that they were tolerably 
well-prepared for their duties as primary teachers and 
they acquitted themselves very well in the schoolroom. 

Our schools flourished. Most of the pupils learned 
rapidly. The number of them multiplied. Soon our 
room was insufficient. From time to time we added 
other schools, and succeeded with small means in doing 
a great, beneficent work. 

We finally carried our case to the School Board of the 
city. We went with faint hearts. In a community 
accustomed to slave laws, which public opinion had 
heartily sustained, we were to ask the great boon of 
public schools for those who by legislative enactment 



336 A Border City in the Civil War 

had been long kept in ignorance. Moreover, the char- 
acter of the men before whom we were to plead the 
cause of the negro made us hesitate. Most of them 
were what were then called Bourbon Democrats, who, 
it was declared, never learned anything nor forgot any- 
thing, and a majority of the Board were Roman Catho- 
lics. What could we expect men of that kind to do for 
the servile and despised race among us? We were 
ushered into their presence. With warm hearts we began 
to state our case. We criminated nobody. We spoke 
earnestly and tenderly for the wronged and neglected. 
We were wonderfully cheered when we saw that those 
whom we addressed were all eye and all ear. They 
intently looked us in the face, they seemed unwilling 
to lose a single word that fell from our lips. The 
injustice that we pointed out was so rank that all their 
hearts were touched. Without a dissenting voice they 
declared that the great wrong must be righted; that 
the children of the men who paid a school tax must 
share in its benefits. 

But, just as we expected, they affirmed that they 
could do nothing for the colored children under the 
existing law; but unsolicited they pledged themselves 
to petition the next legislature for a law that would 
enable them to provide school buildings, books, ap- 
paratus, and teachers for the black children, and to 
support these schools, just as the schools for white 
children are maintained, by the public school funds. 
They were as good as their word. The legislature to 
which they appealed was mainly made up of men of 
radical, progressive views, and what was asked was 
enthusiastically granted. The school buildings for 
colored children were put up and all that could make 
these schools most highly efficient was liberally pro- 



Negro Schools 337 

vided. The negro question for Missouri was solved in 
this high-minded, philanthropic way, and the solution 
was unstained by partisanship or demagogism; and in 
it we saw the grand fruition of our toil on behalf of a 
few private negro schools. 



CHAPTER XXV 

AFTER DARKNESS LIGHT 

In the beginning of the autumn of 1864 the Unionists 
of St. Louis were sadly disheartened. They had not 
been so hopeless since the war began. Men were unable 
to give any rational explanation of their discouragement. 
It probably arose from a combination of untoward 
events. Grant and Sherman had begun their great 
campaigns in Virginia and Georgia. Some hard battles 
had been fought but no very decisive victories had yet 
been gained. Mr. Lincoln had been renominated for 
the Presidency, but without the triumph of our arms 
his election seemed to us somewhat doubtful. For the 
opposing candidate the Democrats had nominated 
General McClellan, who had many enthusiastic followers. 
In their platform they had declared the war a failure. 
The existence of " The Knights of the Golden Circle," 
their great numbers in several States of the Middle West 
and their ardent support of the Democratic candidate 
had become quite generally known. Such an array 
of antagonistic forces seemed to many of the loyal in our 
city, wearied with the long and costly conflict for the 
Union, to betoken possible defeat. 

In this too general gloom I could not share. With 
other optimistic souls I felt sure of ultimate victory. 
It was my duty, therefore, to impart so far as possible 
my confidence to others; so I preached to a full house 



After Darkness Light 339 

from the text: "Think not that I came to send peace 
on the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword." 
The press asked for my sermon and gave it to a far 
greater number than those who heard it. Its closing 
passage enshrines the spirit and stress of that day. 

"There are those, however, who cry out for peace. 
Who does not desire it? Have we not had enough of 
fratricidal strife? Yes, verily. Has not enough blood 
been shed? Yes, a thousand fold more than ought to 
have flowed. Have we not had enough of lamentation 
and tears? Let the Rachels who weep for their children, 
and refuse to be comforted, answer. He has a stone for 
a heart who, looking on the desolations of war, does not 
sigh for peace. But peace at what price? At the price 
of truth? Shall we for the sake of peace give up the 
principle that good government must be obeyed? Shall 
we tamely abandon the truth that all men are equal 
in God's sight, and have a right to the product of their 
own labor? Shall we timidly assent to the tyrannical 
doctrine that the normal condition of a portion of our 
race is slavery? We cannot purchase peace at so great 
cost. God giving us strength, we never will. Let our 
wives be widows and our children orphans; let them beg 
their bread from door to door; let them die without 
care in almshouses, and be buried uncoffined in the 
potter's field; yea, 'let a general conflagration sweep 
over the land, and let an earthquake sink it,' before we 
yield one rood of our territory to those who, without 
cause, lifted up the red hand of rebellion against the 
government of our fathers in the interest of slavery. 
And why all this? Because the truth for which we 
contend is worth more than your life or mine — or 
more than the lives of a generation of men. When peace 
shall be obtained which is based in righteousness, 



340 A Border City in the Civil War 

which flows forth from justice established and exalted 
in the midst of the nation, which grants to all classes 
of men their inalienable rights, we will sing pagans of 
joy over it; but if we are to have a peace based on a 
compromise with iniquity, which will be as deceptive 
as the apples of Sodom, involving our children in dis- 
asters more dire than those which have befallen us, 
every lover of truth, and justice, and good government 
will hang his head in shame. 0, God, save us in mercy, 
from such a peace! Give us anything rather than it. 
Grant us an eighty years' war like that waged by the 
Netherlands, rather than pour into our cup such an 
insidious curse. 

" Brethren, be of good cheer. God now goes before us 
to battle, and grants us victories. This is no time for 
fear and faltering. We must quit ourselves like men, 
like Christian freemen. This conflict is not anomalous. 
There have been many such. Christ, the Prince of Peace, 
anticipated it, and His words coming across the cen- 
turies shall cheer us till the last blow is struck, truth 
vindicated and righteousness immovably established." 

As we approached November the tide of public opinion 
turned in favor of the election of Mr. Lincoln for a second 
term. The invasion of Missouri had failed of its object. 
St. Louis was no longer threatened by her foes; she was 
now secure and serene. The great secret political 
organization, which aspired to destroy the Union and 
defeat the second election of the President, had become 
innocuous; the fangs of the copperhead had been drawn; 
Grant with the hammer of Thor, over grass-covered 
fortifications, was steadily pounding his way towards 
Richmond. Sherman had achieved brilliant success in 
Georgia. All things for the cause of the Union were 
propitious. Lincohi's election was triumphant. Great 



After Darkness Light 341 

patient soul, he now knew that he was enthroned in 
the hearts of the people to whom he was so ardently 
devoted. 

In Missouri many were kept from voting because they 
could not take the prescribed oath of allegiance. On 
that account the result of the election was not the real 
expression of the judgment of the whole people; but 
it gave the most intense satisfaction to all radical Union 
men of our city and State. The President received over 
forty thousand majority; the unconditional Union 
candidate for Governor, Thomas C. Fletcher, received 
a still heavier vote. The people, by more than thirty- 
seven thousand majority, declared themselves in favor 
of another Convention and at the same time elected the 
members of it, more than three-fourths of whom were 
Charcoals. The entire radical ticket for State officers 
was chosen, and the legislature was heavily radical in 
both its branches. Eight of the nine candidates elected 
to Congress were radicals. In eighty of the one hundred 
and fourteen counties of the State the radical ticket 
prevailed. The loyal of our city celebrated this triumph 
of unconditional Unionism with unbounded joy. They 
rang the bells; kindled bonfires; marched with torches 
to martial music; sang patriotic songs; and almost 
split their throats and the welkin with their huzzas. 
Well they might do all this. Every plot against the 
Union had been thwarted; they held at last firmly 
within their grasp the prize for which they had so long 
and patiently struggled. The darkness had fled; the 
light shone. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

RADICALS IN CONVENTION * 

The radicals for many months had been deeply dis- 
satisfied with the conservatism of the old Convention. 
While recognizing its inestimable service in keeping 
Missouri in the Union, they were strongly opposed to 
its policy of gradual, compensated emancipation. They 
clamored for a new Convention to which this, and other 
vitally important questions, should be submitted. So 
many in the State adopted and advocated their views 
that the legislature in February, 1864, passed an act 
creating and calling a new Convention to meet in St. 
Louis on January 6th, 1865, "to consider, first, such 
amendments to the Constitution of the State as may be 
by them deemed necessary for the emancipation of 
slaves; second, such amendments to the Constitution 
of the State as may be by them deemed necessary to 
preserve in purity the elective franchise to loyal citizens ; 
and such other amendments as may be by them deemed 
essential to the promotion of the pubhc good." 

At the election in November, the people, as we have 
already noted, by a decisive majority, declared for a 
new Convention and elected delegates to it most of 
whom were radicals. The Charcoals were at last in the 

* For the facts of this chapter, aside from my own personal obser- 
vations, see "Journal of the Missouri State Convention, held at the 
City of St. Louis, January 6-April 10, 1865." 



Radicals in Convention 343 

saddle. The conservatives were dispirited; and even 
the more moderate radicals held their breath in fear of 
measures too extreme and impracticable. But, whatever 
drawbacks there were, on the whole the radical triumph 
was a healthful onward movement. 

On January 6th, 1865, the Convention met in the 
small Mercantile Library Hall. There were sixty- 
nine delegates. More than half of them had been born 
and bred in slave States. Twenty-three were natives of 
the free States, while ten were immigrants from Europe, 
chiefly from Germany. Some of those who were natives 
of the South had recently been converted from their 
pro-slavery notions and were intent on magnifying their 
new faith. They were uncompromising radicals. 

Unlike the old Convention, there were in this more 
farmers than lawyers, while the medical profession was 
as numerously represented as the legal; almost one- 
fifth of the Convention were physicians. There were 
also twelve merchants, mostly from small towns whose 
business had never been large. Editors, clerks, a me- 
chanic, a railroad agent, a law student, a nurseryman, 
a surveyor, a schoolmaster, and a major of Missouri 
volunteers made up the rest. 

In the main the delegates were young. More than a 
third of them were under forty, and more than two- 
thirds under fifty; none of them were enfeebled by age. 
But a single glance at them convinced any intelligent 
beholder that, taken as a whole, they were in capacity 
mediocre; and most of them by their occupations had 
not been fitted to grapple with questions that pertained 
to the fundamental law of the State. The people who 
chose them had evidently not kept clearly in view the 
delicate and difficult work that they would be called 
upon to perform. To a large extent passion and prejudice 



344 A Border City in the Civil War 

born of the hour had controlled the voters in their 
choice of delegates. In their anxiety to elect men who 
were uncompromisingly in favor of immediate emancipa- 
tion, they had not been sufficiently careful in demanding 
that they should also be men qualified to do their part 
intelligently in reconstructing the organic law of the 
commonwealth. 

Moreover, the Convention did not fairly represent 
the whole body of loyal men in the State. Ruling out 
all downright rebels as justly debarred from voting, the 
conservative anti-slavery element secured at the best 
but a very small representation in this deliberative 
assembly. The stringent oath of allegiance, framed by 
the old Convention and rigidly required of every voter, 
kept many from making any attempt to deposit their 
ballots; not because they were not, even under such a 
severe test, legal voters, but because they shrank from 
the catechizing to which they would be subjected at the 
polls by men who looked with suspicion upon any one 
with conservative views. 

Now when the Convention made up mainly of men 
holding ultra notions came together and organized for 
work, choosing, at its second session, for president, 
Arnold Krekel of St. Charles, a native of Prussia, an 
able lawyer, but an extremist of the most pronounced 
type, all St. Louis was agog. This first important act 
of the Convention unmistakably revealed its radical 
drift, and showed how potent in it were the ultra political 
notions of our German fellow-citizens. It proceeded at 
once to the paramount business for which it had been 
created and called together, the emancipation of the 
slaves of Missouri. On the fifth da}^ after its organization 
it passed, with only four votes in the negative, the 
following ordinance: 



Radicals in Convention 345 

" Be it ordained by the People of the State of Mis- 
souri, in Convention assembled: 

" That hereafter, in this State, there shall be neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in punish- 
ment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted; and all persons held to service or labor as 
slaves are hereby declared free." 

The hall was packed with spectators; and when the 
almost unanimous vote for this ordinance was announced 
by the president they broke out into loud applause; 
they swung hats, waved handkerchiefs, stamped, clapped 
their hands and cheered. The president cried, " Order, 
order," pounded with his gavel and called on the ser- 
geant-at-arms to suppress the exultant uproar; but 
every effort was futile; he might as well have attempted 
to still a hurricane by pounding on a board with a gavel 
and by threatening it with an attack by one man armed. 
And how foolish it was to try. For many years men in 
that shouting crowd had longed for that hour; they had 
often feared that they should die without the sight. 
And now that it had come in such unexpected ways 
their joy must have vent. And in spite of all efforts 
to quiet them they continued to cheer until they were 
exhausted. No wonder. The event that excited them 
was great and significant. More than a hundred thou- 
sand slaves were in a moment made freemen and the 
greatest obstacle to the progress of Missouri was swept 
out of the way. 

When at last the glad cries of the onlooking throng 
died away. Dr. Eliot was called upon to voice the grati- 
tude of all present by returning thanks to Almighty 
God. He came to the president's desk and from a full 
heart poured out in tremulous tones this fitting petition : 

" Most merciful God, before whom we are all equal, 



346 A Border City in the Civil War 

we look up to thee who hast declared thj^self our 
Father and our helper and our strong defence, to thank 
thee that thou art no respecter of persons, to thank 
thee that thou didst send Jesus Christ into the world 
to redeem the world from sin, and that he was the friend 
of the poor, that he came to break the manacles of the 
slaves, 'that the oppressed might go free.' We thank 
thee that this day the people of this State have had 
grace given them to do as they would be done by. We 
pray that thy blessing may rest upon the proceedings 
of this Convention, that no evil may come to this State 
from the wrong position of those who do not agree with 
the action of to-day, but that we, all of us, may be 
united to sustain this which is the law of the land. We 
pray, God ! but our hearts are too full to express our 
thanksgiving ! Thanks be to God for this day that light 
has now come out of darkness, that all things are now 
promising a future of peace and quietness to our dis- 
tracted State. Grant that this voice may go over the 
whole land until the Ordinance of Emancipation is 
made perfect throughout the States. We ask it through 
the name of our dear Lord and Redeemer. Amen." 

This prayer was followed by some moments of reverent 
silence; the hearts of all present had been deeply 
touched. Then the hush that had fallen alike on dele- 
gates and spectators was reluctantly broken. In sub- 
dued tones a motion was offered that the Ordinance of 
Emancipation be engrossed on parchment, attested by 
the secretary and signed by the members of the Con- 
vention. This was unanimously adopted. 

Without a moment's delay, it was moved and carried 
that a duly authenticated copy of the Ordinance be sent 
by special messenger to the Governor of the State, at 
Jefferson City, and that he be requested to issue a 



Radicals in Convention 347 

proclamation to the people of the commonwealth, 
apprising them that, "by the irrevocable action of the 
Convention, slavery is abolished in the State of Mis- 
souri, now and forever." 

The Convention, being in no mood to take up other 
business, adjourned till the next day. But the report 
of what they had done had already spread through the 
whole city. It outran the newsboys who were soon 
vociferously hawking on every street the extras that 
had been quickly sent forth from the newspaper presses. 
All business for the rest of the day was suspended. The 
joyful peal of bells from tower and steeple struck every 
ear. Crowds spontaneously gathered on the streets. 
They eagerly rehearsed and animatedly discussed what 
the Convention had done. Most approved it; a few 
condemned it. Public buildings and most private 
dwellings quickly hung out in profusion the national 
banner, and when night came hundreds of buildings were 
illuminated. There was a carnival of joy. 

The negroes filled their churches, sang songs of 
deliverance, and poured out their quaint thanksgiving 
to God that the day for which they had so long sighed 
had come. As their leaders prayed, those in the pews, 
swaying their bodies back and forth, cried: "Bress de 
Lawd, Amen, Glory, Hal'luah, We's free." To them it 
was the day of days. Their year of jubilee had come. 
They shouted, and sang their touching melodies till 
long after midnight. 

But our picture would be far from complete without 
a glance at the capital of the State. Before the special 
messenger, bearing the Ordinance of Emancipation, had 
reached Jefferson City, the telegraph had anticipated 
both him and his message. The legislature was in ses- 
sion. On receipt of the news, business was at once 



348 . A Border City in the Civil War 

suspended and the members of both houses, with rare 
exceptions, gave themselves up to rejoicing. By a 
resolution enthusiastically adopted, Colonel Jameson 
of St. Louis, Mr. Kiitzner of Hannibal, and Mr. Doan of 
Grundy were invited to sing " John Brown." Standing 
in front of the speaker's desk they sang it amid hearty 
applause, the members of the legislature joining in the 
chorus, " Glory, glory Hallelujah." When the legisla- 
ture adjourned, there were several spontaneous gather- 
ings of the citizens of Jefferson City. These meetings 
were addressed by the ablest speakers residing at the 
capital; also by some members of the legislature, and 
by the Congressman of the district. National banners 
were run up on all public buildings, and out from the 
windows of most of the private houses; bells rang, 
bands played, and in the evening tar barrels were burned 
in the streets, while every window-pane of the Capitol 
seemed to be illuminated. The trees and the neighbor- 
ing hills caught up the light and seemed to rejoice with 
the city; reminding many of the rapt words of the 
prophet; " The mountains and the hills shall break 
forth before you into singing and all the trees of the 
field shall clap their hands." 

On the same day, January 11th, as "requested " by 
the Convention, Governor Fletcher, reciting the Ordi- 
nance of Emancipation, proclaimed to all the inhabitants 
of the commonwealth " that henceforth and forever no 
person within the jurisdiction of this State shall be 
subject to any abridgement of liberty, except such as 
the law may prescribe for the common good, or know 
any master but God." 

And so the curtain fell on the first and greatest act 
of the Convention. If, after eliminating from the 
Constitution of the State all that pertained to involun- 



Radicals in Convention 349 

tary servitude, thus making it consonant with the 
Ordinance of Emancipation, the Convention had ad- 
journed sine die, it would have covered itself with 
imperishable glory. But the act of the legislature by 
which it was created gave to it almost unlimited powers. 
It was especially called upon so to amend the Constitu- 
tion that the elective franchise should be preserved in 
its purity to all loyal citizens, and to make such other 
amendments as it might think "essential to the public 
good." Under this last clause apparently there was 
nothing that they might not legally do, and in their 
remaining work they went to the full limit of their 
powers. Instead of simply revising the old Constitution 
they in fact made a new one, and in spots it was admi- 
rable. It contained the most progressive doctrines of 
popular government; but in prescribing who should be 
legal voters their enactments were so extreme that they 
appear to us now quite ludicrous. To justify this state- 
ment we venture to give in full sections 3 and 6 of 
article II of the Constitution, together with the pre- 
scribed oath, believing that any intelligent reader who 
begins the perusal of them will proceed with increasing 
interest to the last line. 

" Sec. 3. At any election held by the people under this 
Constitution, or in pursuance of any law of this State, 
or under any ordinance or by-law of any municipal 
corporation, no person shall be deemed a qualified voter, 
who has ever been in armed hostility to the United 
States, or to the lawful authorities thereof, or to the 
Government of this State; or has ever given aid, com- 
fort, countenance, or support to persons engaged in any 
such hostility; or has ever, in any manner, adhered to 
the enemies, foreign or domestic, of the United States, 
either by contributing to them, or by unlawfully sending 



350 A Border City in the Civil War 

within their lines, money, goods, letters, or information; 
or has ever disloyally held communication with such 
enemies; or has ever advised or aided any person 
to enter the service of such enemies; or has ever, 
by act or word, manifested his adherence to the 
cause of such enemies, or his desire for their triumph 
over the arms of the United States, or his sympathy 
with those engaged in exciting or carrying on re- 
belHon against the United States; or has ever, 
except under overpowering compulsion, submitted to 
the authority, or been in the service, of the so-called 
' Confederate States of America; ' or has left this 
State, and gone within the lines of the armies of the 
so-called 'Confederate States of America,' with the 
purpose of adhering to said States or armies; or has 
ever been a member of, or connected with, any order, 
society, or organization, inimical to the Government of 
the United States, or to the Government of this State; 
or has ever been engaged in guerrilla warfare against loyal 
inhabitants of the United States, or in that description 
of marauding commonly known as 'bushwhacking; ' 
or has ever knowingly and willingly harbored, aided, or 
countenanced, any person so engaged; or has ever come 
into or left this State for the purpose of avoiding enroll- 
ment for or draft into the military service of the United 
States; or has ever, with a view to avoid enrollment 
in the militia of this State, or to escape the performance 
of duty therein, or for any other purpose, enrolled him- 
self, or authorized himself to be enrolled, by or before 
any officer, as disloyal, or as a Southern sympathizer, 
or in any other terms indicating his disaffection to the 
Government of the United States in its contest with 
rebellion, or his sympathy with those engaged in such 
rebellion; or, having ever voted at any election by the 



Radicals in Convention 351 

people in this State, or in any other of the United States, 
or in any of their Territories, or held office in this State, 
or in any other of the United States, or in any of their 
Territories, or under the United States, shall thereafter 
have sought or received, under claim of alienage, the pro- 
tection of any foreign government, through any consul 
or other officer thereof, in order to secure exemption 
from military duty in the militia of this State, or in the 
army of the United States; nor shall any such person 
be capable of holding, in this State, any office of honor, 
trust, or profit, under its authority; or of being an 
officer, councilman, director, trustee, or other manager 
of any corporation., public or private, now existing or 
hereafter established by its authority; or of acting as 
a professor or teacher in any educational institution, 
or in any common or other school; or of holding any 
real estate, or other property, in trust for the use of 
any church, religious society, or congregation. But the 
foregoing provisions in relation to acts done against the 
United States shall not apply to any person not a 
citizen thereof, who shall have committed such acts 
while in the service of some foreign country at war 
with the United States, and who has, since such acts, 
been naturalized, or may hereafter be naturalized, 
under the laws of the United States; and the oath of 
loyalty hereinafter prescribed, when taken by such 
person, shall be considered as taken in such sense." 

" Sec. 6. The oath to be taken as aforesaid shall be 
known as the Oath of Loyalty, and shall be in the 
following terms : 

"*I, A. B., do solemnly swear, that I am well ac- 
quainted with the terms of the third section of the 
second Article of the Constitution of the State of Mis- 
souri, adopted in the year eighteen hundred and sixty- 



352 A Border City in the Civil War 

five, and have carefully considered the same; that I 
have never, directly or indirectly, done any of the acts 
in said section specified; that I have always been truly 
and loyally on the side of the United States against all 
enemies thereof, foreign and domestic; that I will 
bear true faith and allegiance to the United States, and 
will support the Constitution and laws thereof, as the 
supreme law of the land, any law or ordinance of any 
State to the contrary notwithstanding; that I will, 
to the best of my ability, protect and defend the Union 
of the United States, and not allow the same to be 
broken up and dissolved, or the Government thereof 
to be destroyed or overthrown, under any circum- 
stances, if in my power to prevent it ; that I will support 
the Constitution of the State of Missouri; and that I 
make this oath without any mental reservation or 
evasion, and hold it to be binding on me." 

We see from this how intensely in earnest were the 
delegates of this Convention. But this oath was not 
wholly a creation of theirs. It had a gradual growth. 
We have seen with what imperativeness General Halleck 
demanded an oath of allegiance of all officers of the 
State, county and city, without which they were not 
permitted to exercise their functions. The generals of 
the department that came after him rigorously main- 
tained the same policy. The first sovereign Convention 
adopted it and strenuously enforced it by the sword. 
This Convention, receiving it from the first, with won- 
derful genius for probing the conscience, elaborated it. 
Under its manipulation the oath became retrospective, 
introspective and prospective. No man could take it 
without perjury, who by word or act had been in the 
past, was in the present, or should be in the future, dis- 
loyal to the government of the United States. It not 



Radicals In Convention 353 

only prohibited one who could not subscribe to it from 
voting, but also from holding any government office 
of whatever grade, teaching in any school or preaching 
the gospel. And to make sure that the fountains of 
justice should be freed from every suspicion of dis- 
loyalty, the Convention vacated the offices of the 
judges of the Supreme Court, circuit and county courts, 
and special courts of record throughout the State, and 
of all clerks of courts, county recorders, and circuit 
attorneys and their assistants, and "empowered and 
directed " the Governor of the State to fill these offices 
so vacated by his appointment. Since most judges and 
subordinate officers of the courts were unable to sub- 
scribe to the oath of loyalty without perjury, the Con- 
vention was determined that court officials should be 
appointed that could. And thinking it unsafe to wait 
for the slow process of a popular election and probably 
fearing, if they should, that the elections might not go 
according to their liking, they took a short cut to clean 
the Augean stables. It looked like revolution. At all 
events the Convention went to the full limit, if not 
beyond the limit, of its powers. The judges of the 
Supreme Court resisted what they regarded a gross 
usurpation of authority; but their resistance was vain. 
They were arrested and tried before the City Recorder 
as disturbers of the peace, and so sank from public 
view. 

While the Convention designated the oath the " Oath 
of Loyalty; " the people, seizing upon its exact intent, 
called it the Test Oath. Its object was to test the 
loyalty of those who were required to take it. But the 
oath was too indiscriminate. It did not sufficiently 
recognize different degrees of guilt. Many in our city 
and State who were at first swept by the excitement of 



354 A Border City in the Civil War 

the hour into the ranks of the secessionists, soon saw 
their error and thereafter loyally supported the Federal 
government. Others had at times expressed their 
sympathy with secessionism, but in all their overt acts 
had been faithful to the Union. It would naturally 
have been expected that ordinarily wise and humane 
legislators would have provided for the full, uncon- 
ditional pardon of such men. But no; this oath of 
loyalty was pitiless. It made not the slightest provision 
for the penitent. The majority of the Convention seem 
to have proceeded on the assumption that men who 
had been guilty of rebellion in any degree, if they had 
but expressed a sympathetic emotion in its behalf, 
were unfit either to vote or teach or preach. 

And, for a decade, the most genuine and heart-felt 
repentance would be altogether vain; since the Con- 
vention provided, in the 25th section of the second 
article of the Constitution, that the General Assembly 
of the State might repeal the provisions of the oath, so 
far as they affected voters, after 1871, but so far as 
they pertained to lawyers, school teachers and ministers 
not till after 1875. Therefore irrespective of the degree 
of his guilt, to the attorney, the pedagogue or the 
preacher, these astute constitution-makers, with a scent 
for disloyalty keener than that of a hound, for ten long 
years, granted "no place of repentance," even though 
he should seek it "dihgently with tears." 

It would, however, be unjust to overlook the fact that 
there was in the Convention a conservative minority, 
who steadily and sturdily fought this extreme legisla- 
tion. They contended that it was unjust to many in 
the State; that, especially since the end of the war must 
be near, the true policy was that of forgiveness and 
reconciliation; that those who in spite of their Southern 



Radicals in Convention 355 

birth and education had, through' bitter experiences, 
become loyal, should not have their new-born faith 
crushed out of them by this merciless oath; that the 
oath was a political blunder since it would give all the 
enemies of the new Constitution some just ground for 
their opposition to it. The debate was long and sharp. 
Dr. Linton, a physician of our city, who had been a 
member of the first Convention, while loyal to the core, 
distinguished himself by his strong opposition to the 
oath. He had a genius for cogent, laconic speech. And 
since Charles D. Drake, a Southerner by birth, was the 
pre-eminent advocate of the oath and the author of most 
of its details, with grim sarcasm he called it "the Dra- 
conian oath." But the faithful minority could not stem 
the tide of radicalism in the Convention and this 
notorious oath became a part of the new Constitution 
of Missouri. 

But we must cordially recognize the fact that the 
authors of it, and all in the Convention who voted to 
make it part and parcel of the ground law of the State, 
were genuinely patriotic. They sought not primarily 
party ends, but the highest good of their common- 
wealth and of the entire Republic. While they no 
longer doubted the favorable issue of the terrible grapple 
of the Northern and Southern armies at Petersburg 
and the Weldon Railroad, they clearly saw that this 
battle of blood would be followed by a desperate political 
contest; that what disunionists should fail to gain by 
the sword, they would endeavor to achieve by statecraft. 
They were firmly persuaded that Missouri now faced 
her greatest peril; that her future destiny trembled in 
the balance. If her old, corrupt politicians, who, through 
necessity and with a sigh, had relinquished their hold on 
slavery, should at once gain political ascendency, much, 



356 A Border City in the Civil War 

if not all, that had been wrought out on the field of 
carnage, would be hopelessly lost. The leaders of the 
Convention, with an accurate knowledge of the situa- 
tion, shaped its legislation effectively to meet, if possible, 
the emergency. They framed this searching test oath 
to hold in check the rebellious, pro-slavery element of 
the commonwealth, until the new order of things should 
be thoroughly established. They were firmly resolved 
that those who had striven with savage might to force 
Missouri into secession, and link her to a Confederacy 
founded on slavery, should not shape her future political 
character; that since God had preserved the people in 
their passage through a sea of blood, the taskmaster 
should not now lead them back to a worse than Egyptian 
bondage. Whether the acts of the Convention were 
wise or unwise, the whole drift of the Constitution 
framed by it clearly shows that this was its sole and 
commendable object. 

But after the Emancipation Act was passed, the Con- 
vention, having, against the earnest protest of some of 
its own members, doggedly set itself to the work of 
making a new Constitution, lost, to a large extent, the 
confidence of many of the best loyal men of the State. 
Even a goodly number of the delegates that composed 
it became to the extent of their power obstructionists. 
Absenteeism grew apace, and only by the rigid enforce- 
ment of the rules could the Convention be saved from 
disastrous disintegration. Some of its members fell 
into a vein of ridicule and one of them offered a string 
of satirical resolutions, which, though unmitigated 
balderdash, the Convention complacently spread on its 
minutes. 

Most of the constituents of the Convention, while 
generously recognizing the great merit of much of its 



Radicals in Convention 357 

work, were often ashamed of what it did and said. In 
fact its debates were never published, beyond the brief 
and imperfect reports of them in the daily papers. In 
explanation of this curious fact, it was hinted that the 
leaders of the Convention were so mortified by them, 
that they managed to suppress the whole, both good 
and bad together. 

The Convention, after dragging drearily on for seventy- 
eight days, completed its work. It submitted the new 
Constitution which it had wrought out to the suffrages 
of the people, that it might be by them adopted or 
rejected. On the sixth of June it was ratified at the 
polls by less than two thousand majority. This slender 
majority was in part accounted for when, on analyzing 
the vote, it was found that the saner radicals either 
stayed at home on election day or voted with the oppo- 
sition. 

On the first day of July (1865) the Governor formally 
proclaimed the vote for the adoption of the "Revised 
and amended Constitution," and declared that "it 
will take effect as the Constitution of the State of Mis- 
souri, on the fourth day of the present month of July." 
And while this Constitution was not in all respects what 
the sanest minds demanded, it contained so much that 
was progressive and admirable that its rejection at that 
transitional epoch would have been a calamity. While 
some parts of it were reprehensible, it embodied much of 
the most advanced statesmanship of the day, and 
crystallized in fundamental law what we had achieved 
by the war. It was progress made permanent. 

But as soon as the Constitution became operative, 
there was throughout the State confusion, trouble and 
distress. No attorney, clerk of court, judge of any 
grade, teacher male or female, deacon, elder or minister 



358 A Border City in the Civil War 

was permitted to perform the duties which pertained 
to his profession or office unless he had subscribed to 
the test oath. Hosts of those upon whom this demand 
was made could not take it without perjury. If without 
subscribing to it they ventured to do the duties which 
belonged to their respective callings, they were liable 
to a fine of five hundred dollars or to imprisonment in 
the county jail for not less than six months, or to both; 
if they should take the oath falsely they would be 
adjudged guilty of perjury, and punished by imprison- 
ment in the penitentiary for not less than two years. 
As was inevitable, arrests and indictments for the viola- 
tion of this statute were frequent. Its attempted 
enforcement outraged and angered the people. A 
multitude of protests loud and bitter came up from every 
part of the commonwealth. Sympathy was aroused 
especially for those who had repented of their disloyalty, 
and now ardently desired to serve their country, but 
in whose faces the new Constitution shut and barred 
every door of forgiveness. Christian pastors, especially 
of the Episcopal and Baptist churches, raised the cry of 
persecution. But persecution was the very farthest 
from the purpose of the framers of the Constitution. 
In their bill of rights they set forth with great breadth 
and explicitness the doctrine of unrestricted religious 
liberty. And in fact in the enforcement of the test 
oath there was no religious persecution. No one was 
punished for holding and promulgating any religious 
tenet. Moreover, the oath was required of lawyers and 
school teachers as a prerequisite to their duties as well 
as of ministers. Many ministers all over the State had 
in one way or another supported the rebellion, and 
were now suffering for that and nothing else. 

But the Convention had strangely blundered. After 



Radicals in Convention 359 

having proclaimed unrestricted religious liberty, it had 
decisively invaded it. For a civil offence it had meted 
out an ecclesiastical penalty. For his disloyalty to the 
Federal government and the State, it declared under 
pains and penalties, that the pastor should neither 
marry the betrothed, bury the dead, administer the 
ordinances of the church, nor preach the gospel. Thus 
what, with a flourish of trumpets, it proclaimed in its 
Bill of Rights, it struck down by its enacted Oath of 
Loyalty. In its legislation it entered a sphere from which 
by its own pronunciamento it was utterly debarred. It 
forgot the pithy utterance of the martyred Lincoln, 
when appealed to to restore a pastor to his parish and 
pulpit from which on political grounds he had been 
deposed by a Presbyterian synod, that ''he could not 
run the government and churches too." What a pity 
that the leaders of the Convention in their consuming 
zeal for loyalty undertook the impossible task of doing 
both. Especially when just the smallest modicum of 
logic in the interpretation of their own new Constitution 
would have kept them from this colossal folly. 

But blessed be the Supreme Court of the United States ! 
About three years after the new Constitution had been 
ratified by the people, it declared by barely one majority 
that the notorious test oath was unconstitutional. A 
multitude in our State ever after held in grateful remem- 
brance that one Federal judge, who tipped the scales 
against the oath that had too long been a thorn in the 
side of the body politic. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE WIND-UP 

It was April 10th, 1865, the last day of the Constitu- 
tional Convention. As, in the morning, the Convention 
began listlessly and wearily to do the formal and neces- 
sary things before its final adjournment, a telegram was 
received announcing the surrender of General Lee on 
the preceding day to General Grant at Appomattox. 
The effect was electric. In a flash all dulness and 
languor fled. For the nonce all differences of opinion 
vanished. All hearts were surcharged with patriotic 
emotion. The die was cast. The integrity of the 
Union was assured. From all parts of the hall came 
shouts of joy; delegates and spectators vied with each 
other in expressions of gladness. They clapped, stamped 
and cried, " The Union forever! " Mr. Drake, the 
leader of the Convention, finally got the ear of the 
rejoicing patriots and gravely moved that they give 
cheers three times three "for the glorious news just now 
received." They were given with full lung power. 
Those nine hurrahs brought the members of the Con- 
vention to quietude once more, and they proceeded by 
resolution to thank "Almighty God for the success of 
our noble and patriotic army and navy; for the steady 
and persistent perseverance of our noble President in 
the work of breaking the power of the rebellion; and 
especially for the noble and humane disposition which 



The Wind-up 361 

has been manifested by our authorities to our con- 
quered enemy," But they also declared, that they were 
not ready "to sanction any terms of peace which will 
admit of the perpetuation of slavery in any part of the 
Republic." While this last resolution was well enough 
as an expression of opinion, it showed, at the very last, 
a disposition on the part of the Convention to get beyond 
its jurisdiction and attempt to shape the policy of the 
general government. Its remaining routine work was 
soon done. Its life ended. But the city and State, 
rejoicing over the close of the war, scarcely noted it. 
Those who did notice its termination w^re twice glad; 
glad that it had adjourned sine die and that national 
peace, founded in justice, had come. 

That 10th of April was memorable not only for the 
whole nation, but also especially for St. Louis. A border 
city, which, for four long years, had been a bone of con- 
tention, fought over and snarled over by the dogs of 
war, had perhaps a keener appreciation of the surrender 
of the illustrious Lee, than could be found in any city 
far to the north of Mason and Dixon's line. At all 
events no pen however able and eloquent could ade- 
quately depict our joy on the day which followed 
Grant's final victory in Virginia. No business was done, 
except that which was most necessary and perfunctory. 
Men spontaneously gathered in crowds, their faces 
radiant, their lips rippling with smiles; they shook 
hands with firm grip; with tears starting in their eyes 
they talked of the surrender; all bitterness seemed to 
be gone; there was Httle or no exultation over those 
who had laid down their arms; men on every hand just 
brimmed over with gladness that the fratricidal strife 
had ended, and that slaveiy, the fruitful cause of our 
greatest woes, was no more. 



362 A Border City in the Civil War 

And it was remarkable how few secessionists there 
were in our city on that day. During the four preceding 
years they had been alarmingly numerous, but now only 
a very few could be found; they had been strangely 
and magically transformed into Unionists. Even those 
who for four years had sat on the fence hopped of! on 
the Union side, flapped their wings and crowed. 

Still our city was not a unit in political thought and 
sentiment. While Grant's victory caused the great 
multitude to rejoice, it was wormwood and gall to 
the few, who, in spite of disaster to the Confederacy, 
were still faithful to it. While their neighbors were 
exultant, they bitterly mourned. The city put on its 
gala dress. Public buildings and private dwellings were 
lavishly decorated with red, white and blue. National 
flags of all sizes were flung to the breeze. But here and 
there a house was flagless. Within sat sad and sombre 
secessionists sighing over their shattered hopes. They 
refused to be comforted. At night once more the bells 
rang, bands played, bonfires blazed, cannon boomed, 
and the windows of most buildings, public and private, 
were illuminated; while in public halls the people 
gathered to listen to patriotic speeches and to sing the 
most popular and stirring war songs. " The Star 
Spangled Banner," " Rally Round the Flag, Boys," 
and " The Soul of Old John Brown," had a large place 
in our festivity, while " My Country, 'Tis of Thee," was 
sung as the crowning and parting hymn. 

But sorrow and tears trod on the heels of joy. April 
15th, five days after our exultant celebration of Lee's 
surrender, came the astounding news that our great 
President had been shot the night before at Ford's 
Theatre, in Washington, and that he had died in the 
morning. For an hour or two we were dazed by this 



The Wind-up 363 

sudden and overwhelming calamity. No one thought 
of doing business. Those who gathered on the Board 
of Trade did nothing but talk over the crushing national 
sorrow. Men as if in a dream moved along the streets; 
few said anything; they dumbly shook hands and 
passed sadly on ; as the most stalwart met, tears started ; 
the city was silent and a pall of gloom rested upon all. 
Men at last began slowly to drift together in companies 
upon the streets. They conversed in low but earnest 
tones. Beneath that calm exterior fierce passion burned. 

On Fourth Street a great, excited crowd had instinc- 
tively gathered; they, like all others, were talking 
over the appalling national loss. A stranger passed 
by. They thought that he expressed himself as pleased 
with the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. In a moment the 
pent up fires within them flashed forth. They seized 
the stranger, beat him, dragged him roughly along the 
pavement, he all the time pleading to be heard. At last 
they listened to his statement and were convinced that 
they had quite misunderstood what they believed to 
have been a grossly offensive utterance. They were 
deeply ashamed of what they had passionately done, 
and humbly apologized for it. But the incident showed 
that the life of any one in our city, who, on that day, 
should have openly approved of the murder of the 
President, would have been indignantly snuffed out. 

Throughout the city all flags were at half-mast. On 
public buildings, churches and private dwellings, the 
emblems of rejoicing gave place to those of mourning. 
Public sentiment was such that no one living in the 
better part of the residential districts dared to withhold 
the ordinary tokens of the general sorrow. Houses 
that five days before were conspicuously dark amid 
the almost universal illumination were now draped in 



364 A Border City in the Civil War 

black; some it may be in self-defence, but probably 
in most cases as the expression of genuine sorrow. 
Though the Confederacy for which the secessionists of 
our city had worked and prayed was irretrievably lost, 
they had at least come to respect Mr. Lincoln, not only 
for his unswerving fidelity to what he believed to be 
the right, but also for his broad charity, and not a few 
of them, while still differing from him politically, admired 
him as a man. They recognized in him a great and 
generous friend of the South, and so joined with us, on 
that day of tears, in eulogizing the martyr and denoun- 
cing his assassin. The same lips that four years before 
had scornfully called him clown, the Illinois ape, baboon 
and gorilla, now praised him. He had not only subdued 
the rebellion by force of arms, but also by his clearness 
of conception, fairness in administration, unflinching 
advocacy of the rights of all, patience and persistence 
in duty, and large-heartedness, had conquered their 
inveterate prejudices. 

In the afternoon of that day of sorrow, the churches 
were thrown open, and large congregations met to pray. 
They poured out their hearts in thanksgiving to God 
for the unsullied life of the martyred President; for his 
courage and wisdom in proclaiming liberty to the captive, 
and freedom to the oppressed. They prayed for his 
constitutional successor in ofhce, and for God's blessing 
on the people both North and South, Nor did they 
forget the assassin whose wanton act had bowed a nation 
in grief. In all their utterances they were calm and 
sane, as men always are when, in submission to the 
will of God, they commune with Him. At last the 
curtain of darkness fell on that terrible day, and men 
with throbbing brows and aching hearts lay down 
to rest; but to many, if sleep came git all, it came but 



The Wind-up 365 

fitfully. We seemed to be living in a new world. One 
era of our national life had ended, another had begun. 
And with ever new experiences our mourning was 
prolonged as from day to day with the whole Republic 
we followed in thought the dust of the immortal martyr 
to its last resting-place at Springfield, Illinois. It was 
most fitting that it should lie near the home of his early 
manhood, and in the State that he, in larger measure 
than any other, had made illustrious. 

Thirty days after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, 
the Baptist Missionary Societies of the North held, by 
urgent invitation, their May Meetings in our city. 
This had been made possible by the war. The churches 
of this great denomination had long been divided by 
slavery; but now the delegates from the churches of 
the North came to hold out the olive branch to their 
brethren of the South on what had been slave soil. 
They came by hundreds. The city gave them a royal 
welcome. Christians of all denominations threw open 
their doors to them and lavished upon them their hos- 
pitality. It was an era of good feeling. Denomination- 
alism and the irritating questions of the war decidedly 
fell into the background. 

But there was another side to the picture. Southern 
Baptists, except from the national capital, did not come 
to us. The olive branch seemed to be held out in vain. 
The brotherly act was even misconstrued. The coming 
of these Northern missionary societies to our city was 
regarded as an unwarrantable invasion of Southern 
soil. Forty years had to pass away, a generation had 
to die in the wilderness, before, in St. Louis, during the 
progress of the May Meetings of the same societies, 
Northern and Southern Baptists, standing face to face, 
truly fraternized with each other and sang heartily: 



366 A Border City in the Civil War 

" Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love." 

There was one unique incident at the meetings in 
1865, that deserves special notice. The name of the 
martyred President was on all lips. Men were just 
beginning to understand and appreciate something of 
his greatness, both of mind and heart. It was whispered 
in the ears of our guests that an artist of our city, A. J. 
Conant, had painted, from sittings, a portrait of Mr. 
Lincoln. He was invited to unveil this portrait before 
the assembled delegates. He did so. A great and 
distinguished company greeted it with enthusiasm and 
cheers; and were specially delighted to hear the artist's 
account of what the great President did and said while 
he kindly sat for his portrait, — what quaint and sug- 
gestive stories he told. The portrait was painted before 
Mr. Lincoln's first inauguration. His face was then 
smooth shaven. He had not yet covered up with 
scraggly whiskers the rugged outlines of his lower jaw, 
which, from a side view, as some one has said, was 
shaped like the keel of a three-masted schooner.^ It 
is doubtful if any one has produced a better portrait 
of that strong face with its undertone of sadness. 

A little later the Presbyterians held a convention in 
our city. This too was an outcome of the war. In May, 
their General Assembly at Pittsburg had enacted some 
severe and radical measures in reference to slavery and 
loyalty to the national government. Many Presby- 
terians, especially of the border States, protested against 
this. The convention was called to consider the whole 
question. There were over two hundred delegates, 
mainly from the North; probably not a score of them 

1 See Volk's life-mask of Lincoln's face. 



The Wind-up 367 

were from the border States, including Missouri.^ The 
aggrieved States were very slimly represented. The 
synod of Missouri was so opposed to the legislation of 
the General Assembly as to ask permission peaceably 
to withdraw from it. Their request was very earnestly 
debated. A pastor from Brooklyn, N. Y., joined hands 
with a pastor of St. Louis in behalf of the recalcitrant 
synod, urging, by great ingenuity of argument, that 
the synod should be permitted unmolested to secede. 
In their impassioned appeals on behalf of the aggrieved 
synod they were at times so eloquent that the galleries 
burst out into applause. The ladies waved their 
handkerchiefs. The style of the brother from our city 
was often quite flowery. These two defenders of the 
refractory synod sometimes complained in their 
speeches that they were not being fairly dealt with, 
and posed as martyrs; at other times their language 
became somewhat threatening. 

But at last a Scotchman from Ohio got the floor. 
His speech was replete with mingled humor and sarcasm. 
The delegates and spectators were at times convulsed 
with laughter. Among other things he said, with a 
decided Scotch accent, "Mr. Moderator, the brethren 
who have defended the synod that wishes to secede 
have posed as martyrs. What is a martyr? In the 
time of the early church it was one who suffered for 
the truth which he believed and advocated. He was 
thrown to wild beasts and was torn limb from limb; 
or he was sewed in a sack and thrown into the Tiber, or 
he was burned at the stake. But what is a modern 
martyr? It is to live on Brooklyn Heights and be 
sent to Europe for the bronchitis." A too personal 
thrust at the delegate from Brooklyn. " What is a 
» American Church Hist., Vol. VI, pp. 168-9. 



368 A Border City in the Civil War 

modem martyr? It is to make an eloquent speech in 
an assembly like this and have the fair in the galleries 
wave their handkerchiefs. But the speech of the brother 
from this city brought to my mind an experience of 
my school days. I wrote an oration and handed it to 
my teacher for correction. When he had examined it 
he called me to him and said, 'Taylor, if you would 
only pluck a few feathers from the wings of your imagi- 
nation and stick them into the tail of your judgment, 
you would write a great deal better.' 

" And then, if I heard correctly, we are threatened 
with disaster if we now vote against permitting this 
seceding synod to depart in peace. But shall we by 
threats be deterred from our duty? Having already 
cut off the seven hydra heads of secession, shall we now 
be frightened with the wriggle of its tail? " 

This was the climax. There was long continued 
laughter and applause, which the moderator was unable 
to check. Peaceable secession found no more favor in 
this Presbyterian Convention than it had found under 
the general government of the United States. Secession 
was dead. 

At last the end of strife in Missouri had come. It 
came in fact even before the surrender of Lee. Three 
days after the second inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, 
Governor Fletcher declared by proclamation that no 
organized armed force against the general government 
any longer existed in the State. He called upon all 
civil officers to resume their duties. And on the 17th 
of March, Major-General Pope, then in command of 
the Department of Missouri, issued orders to aid in 
carrying out the proclamation of the Governor. He 
withdrew the military forces from all districts where 
the people were ready to return in good faith to civil 



The Wind-up 369 

rule, and by August there remained less than a dozen 
mihtary posts in the State; and these were kept up 
chiefly for the protection of the property of the Federal 
government. 

And now rejoicing in peace which was based upon 
righteousness, St. Louis entered upon an era of great 
prosperity. She grew apace in commerce, wealth and 
population. No longer, as Carl Schurz characterized 
her before the war, "a free city on slave soil," but a 
great free city on free soil. 



THE END. 



INDEX 



Abolitionists, denovinced, 48; alleged atrocious conduct of, 54; 
hated, 161; two extraordinary, 170-176; as viewed by South- 
erners, 252. 

Alabama, Governor of, urges secession, 23, 33. 

Alton, Illinois, arms landed at, 79; murder of Lovejoy at, 80; 
fugitives from panic in Saint Louis flee to, 111. 

Anderson, Reverend Galusha, pastor of Second Baptist Church, 
122, 166; character of his church, 122; prays for president, 
124-126; outraged by sight of rebel flag, 126; his congregation 
sings America, 130; preaches against secession, 127-130; 
attempted attack upon, 131; prints sermon in Missouri Re- 
publican, 133; marriage of, 131; visits Cincinnati, 131; left 
by secession parishioners, 133-134; attempt to force resigna- 
tion of, 136; preaches first Union sermon in Saint Louis, 137; 
preaches so-called " politics," 139; his association with Cbristian 
secessionists, 141; one of his deacons won to the Union, 148- 
149; his interview with artist of " The Slave Mart," 156-157; 
denounced by Presbyterian editor, 166; his life threatened, 
167-168; in Washington's Birthday Parade, 249; joins Home 
Guards, 275; preaches to soldiers, 301; works in hospitals, 
302; helps conscience -stricken Quaker soldier, 303; cares for 
religious work in Fifth Street Hospital, 304-307; examines 
teachers for negro schools, 334-335; preaches confidence in 
1864, 339. 

Anderson, guerilla leader, 325. 

Anderson, Confederate prisoner, 302. 

Anderson, Reverend Richard, negro pastor, 176; early life of, 12; 
attitude toward free negro exclusion bill, 13; pleads for slave 
mother, 177-178. 

Anderson, Reverend S. J. P., mistaken assault upon, 134-135; 
preaches on " Ultimatum of the South," 121, 135. 

Army and Brigade Hospitals, 288. 

Army, Union, Missouri troops in, 62; of the Frontier, 274. 

Arsenal in Saint Louis, 23, 82, 86; arms at, 21; situation of, 63; 
fight for, 63-85; description of, 63; United States troops in, 
64; threatened attack on, 69; fortifying of, 69, 73; two heads 
to, 70; rumors about, 74; plots against, 76, 77, 90; arras sent 
from, 77-80; defense of, by Missourians, 83; prisoners from 
Camp Jackson at, 99-102; munitions from Camp Jackson 



372 Index 

removed to, 104; " J. C. Swan " brought to, 118; draped in 
black for General Lyon, 212. 

Baptist Missionary Societies, hold meetings in Saint Louis, 365; 
division among, 365. 

Bast, George Y., casts only vote for secession in convention of 1861, 
58. 

Bates, Edward, President Lincoln's Attorney General, 4; frees 
his slave, Richard Anderson, 12. 

Baton Rouge, arms stolen from, 104, 118. 

Battles, Boonville, 202, 288; Carthage, 288; Chickamauga, 315; 
Davidson, Fort, 328; Donelson, Fort, 296; Dug Spring, 288; 
Fair Oaks, 124; Independence, 273; Lexington, 219; Pea 
Ridge, 244; Pittsburg Landing, 291; Wilson's Creek, 211, 288. 

Beauregard, General P. G. T., attack of, on Fort Sumter, 74; street 
in Camp Jackson named for, 104. 

Bell, Major WiUiam H., at Arsenal, 66, 67, 94; pledges himself 
to General Frost, 66; ordered to N. Y., 66; resigns, 67. 

Belle Fontaine, the Cemetery, 4; the Fort, headquarters of Depart- 
ment of Upper Louisiana, 7; Sac and Fox Indians sell land 
around, 7. 

Benton, Thomas H., most distinguished man in Missouri, 4; funeral 
of, 4; called " The Magisterial," 4; United States Senator, 5; 
political speeches of, 5; opposed to nomination of John C. 
Fremont, 5. 

Bitterness of feeling in Saint Louis during the war, 159-169. 

Blair, Frank P., 4, 92; member of Congress and friend to Lyon, 
69; forms Home Guard, 69; visits President Buchanan, 70; 
appeals to Secretary of War in Lyon's behalf, 73; in attack 
on Camp Jackson, 96; confers with Committee of Safety, 93; 
rumor of his intended attack on the state capital, 104; life 
of, threatened, 163-165; proscribed, 169; in conference with 
General Lyon and Governor Jackson, 199-201; opposes Fre- 
mont, 222; becomes conservative, 279. 

Blunt, General, drives guerrillas from Missouri, 273. 

Bogie, Mr., candidate for Congress, 5. 

Boonville, battle of, 202, 203, 288; panic at, 322. 

Border slave states, ignored by seceding states, 60; kept in Union 
by Missouri's loyalty, 62. 

Bowen, Colonel, of militia, on Kansas border, 88; reports to General 
Frost at Saint Louis, 89. 

Breckenridge, Judge S. M., 45. 

Broadhead, James O, lawyer, 4; member of Convention of 1861, 
44; member of Committee of Safety, 92; attendant at Second 
Baptist Church, 122. 

Brotherton, Marshal, deacon, slaveholder, emancipator, 170-173. 

Buchanan, President James, 65, 68, 176; inactivity of, 32, 34-36, 
124; contrast to President Jackson. 35; his position repudiated 
by loyalists, 35; sends troops to Saint Louis, 64; refuses 
Captain Lyon supreme command of the Arsenal at Saint Louis, 
70; prayed for, 124-125. 



Index 373 

Buckner, General Simon B., surrenders Fort Donelson, 246. 

Bushwhackers in Missouri, 324; murders by, 325. 

Butler, General Benjamin F., 262, 285. 

Cairo, fugitives from panic flee to. 111; military encampment at, 
209; General Grant at, 223; Sanitary Commission at, 296; 
General Smith at, with relief for Missouri, 326. 

Calhoun, John C, disciples of, in Convention of 1861, 50-51. 

Cameron, Simon, President Lincoln's Secretary of War, 84, 88; 
visits Fremont, 222. 

Camp Jackson, 86-105, 106, 119, 126, 159, 169, 181, 198, 203; for 
whom named, 89; fear of, 90-91: number of men at, 91; attack 
upon, 95-98; prisoners from, 97-99; results from capture of, 
99-103; character of, 104-105; streets in, 104. 

Canby, General E. R. S., calls for soldiers, 320. 

Carthage, battle of, 288. 

Cavender, Mr., gives time to Home for Refugees, 293. 

Chamber of Commerce, division of, 153-154. 

"Charcoals and Claybanks," 276-287, 341, 342; radical and con- 
servative Unionists, 277-278; differences among, 278; extreme 
policy of Charcoals, 280-282; Charcoals oppose General Schofield 
and Governor Gamble, 283-284; complain to War Department, 
285; Claybanks favor and oppose General Schofield, 287. 

Chicago Convention nominates Abraham Lincoln, 54-55. 

Chickamauga, battle of, 315. 

Chouteau, Colonel, house of, back from river, 7. 

Christian secessionists, 140-141. 

Church, see " Pulpit," " Baptist," " Presbyterian." 

City General Hospital, 290. 

City Hospital, 288. 

" City of Alton," steamer, engaged to carry arms, 77-80. 

" City of Louisiana," fitted as a hospital, 297. 

Civil government in Saint Louis inaugurated, 7. 

" Claybanks," see " Charcoals and Claybanks." 

Clayton, Honorable A. M., of Alabama, 119. 

Clubs, political, 19-22; see " Wide-Awakes " and " Minute Men." 

Colonization Society, 175. 

Columbus, Kentucky, fugitives from panic flee to, 111; rebels at, 
plan to seize Paducah, 223; Union army there first, 245. 

Committee of Safety, 92-93. 

Committee on Federal Relations, of Convention of 1861, 53, 49; 
reports against secession, 57. 

Conant, A. J., unveils Lincoln's portrait, 366. 

Conant, Major, in conference with Lvon and Jackson, 199. 

Confederacy, Southern, 71. 82, 87," 105. 119, 147; formed, 62; 
Congress of. votes to admit Missouri, 232; authorizes Jefferson 
Davis to raise troops in Missouri, 232. 

Confiscation, of war material in Saint Louis. 116; of the " J. C. 
Swan," 118; of slaves, 218; by General Curtis, 280. 

Constitution of Missouri, new, of 1865. 349, 356; ratified at polls, 
357; portion of, declared unconstitutional, 359. 



374 Index 

Convention of Missouri of 1861, how created, 41-42; met in Jefferson 
City, 42-43; adjourned to Saint Louis, 45; its composition, 
46-48; proslavery in sentiment, 48; divided on how to preserve 
slavery, 49; conditional and unconditional unionists in, 50-52; 
organization of, 53; speech in, by Orr, 54; action of , on Georgia's 
Ordinance of Secession, 55; opposed by legislature, 56; sover- 
eign in Missouri, 57, 231; voted down secession, 58; adjourned 
to meet on caU of Committee, 58; came together in July, 227; 
established provisional state government, 228; sustained by 
Halleck, 235; required oath of allegiance, 235. 

Convention, Radical, of 1865, 342-359; calling of, 342; composition 
of, 343-344; met in Mercantile Library Hall, 343; a German 
as president of, 344; passed Emancipation Ordinance, 345-346; 
made drastic requirements for the franchise, 349-352; adopted 
" Oath of Loyalty," 351-353; amended the constitution, 
349-352, 360-361; rejoicing in, over Lee's surrender, 360; 
adjourned sine die, April 10, 361. 

Cooper, William, commissioner from Alabama, 23. 

Crum, Mr., candidate for Congress, 5. 

Currency, 268-270; postage stamps used as, 269; " postage cur- 
rency," 269; " fractional currency," 269; furs used as, 8. 

Curtis, General Samuel R., 274, 280; drives Price from Missouri, 
244; wins victory at Pea Ridge, 244; in command at Saint 
Louis, 274; favors Charcoals, 280; confiscations by, 280; in 
collision with governor, 281; removal of, 282, 283. 

Davidson, Fort, battle of, 328. 

Davis, Jefferson, his letter to Governor Jackson, 87; cannon solicited 
from, 88, 94; street in Camp Jackson named for, 104; cannon 
sent by, to Saint Louis, 105; cheers for, 191; visited by Gov- 
ernor Jackson, 229; authorized to raise troops in Missouri, 232; 
approves act admitting Missouri to Confederacy, 233. 

Decisions for and against the Union, 146-158; for the Union, 146-149. 

Democrats, 20; on Saint Louis school board, 336. 

Divisions, caused by the war, 146-158; in church, 151-153; in 
Chamber of Commerce, 153-154; between friends, 149-151, 154. 

Dix, Dorothea L., superintendent of nurses, 288; appoints Mr. 
Yeatman her agent in Saint Louis, 294. 

Donelson, Fort, capture of, 246; Sanitary Commission at, 296. 

Douglas, Stephen A., his debates with Lincoln, 11; champion of 
squatter sovereignty, 17, 20. 

Drake, Charles D., advocate of Oath of Loyalty, " Draconian Oath," 
355; calls for cheers for Lee's surrender, 360. 

Dryden, John, altered quotation from, 148. 

Dug Spring, battle of, 288. 

Duke, BasU Wilson, leader of Minute Men, police commissioner, 72. 

Eliot, Reverend William G., D.D., 4, 301; Unitarian, unionist, 121; 
of the Sanitary Commission, 289; description of, 290; offers 
prayer of thanksgiving in Convention of 1865, 345-346. 

Emancipation, Proclamation of, by President Lincoln, 149; by 
individual slave owners, 170-176; by General Halleck, 241; 



Index 375 

Ordinance passed by Missouri Convention of 1865, 345, 356; 
celebrated at Saint Louis and Jefferson City, 847-348. 

Engler, Mr., banished because of resistance to assessments, 243. 

Everett, Edward, delivers oration on Washington, in Saint Louis, 
271 272. 

Ewing, General, 327-330; holds Pilot Knob, 327; checks Price at 
Fort Davidson, 328; retreats to the Meramec, 329; holds 
Harrison Station, 329. 

Fair, Mississippi Valley Sanitary, held by Western Sanitary Com- 
mission, 309-314; participants in, 309-310; departments of, 
311-312; Germans in, 311-312; widespread response to ap- 
peals for, 310; success of, 313; a boon to Saint Louis, 314. 

Federal Relations, committee on in convention of 1861, 49, 53, 57. 

Filley, Oliver D., mayor of Saint Louis, a friei^d to Lyon, 69; member 
of Committee of Safety, 92. 

Flags, absence of, in 1861, 23, 38, 131, 362; rebel, in street, 38-39, 
72, 126, hauled down, 100, suppressed by HaUeck, 237; display 
of Stars and Stripes, 146-147, 159, 248; on Court House, 29; 
lowered at Sumter, 75; at the Fair, 313. 

Fletcher, Governor T. C, 346; election of, 341; proclaims Eman- 
cipation Ordinance, 348; proclaims Revised Constitution, 357; 
proclaims end of armed conflict, 368. 

Floyd, John Buchanan, of Virginia, Secretary of War, sends arms 
south, 34. 

Foote, Commodore Andrew Hull, at Fort Henry, 245; at Fort 
Donelson, 246. 

Fort Sumter, fall of, 74, 75; effect of, in Saint Louis, 75. 

Foster, Mr., delegate to convention of 1861, 56. 

Freedmen's Relief Society, organized, 294. 

Fremont, John C, offered Republican nomination for President, 5; 
Major General, 206; his fleet on the Mississippi, 208; deceived 
at New Madrid, 209; at Cairo, 209, 230; fails to support Lyon, 
208-209, 212-213; praises Lyon, 213; inefficiency of, 212-213, 
219, 223; declares martial law in Saint Louis, 213, in Missouri, 
217; frees slaves of the disloyal, 217; is reproved by Lincoln, 
217-218; fails to reenforce Mulligan, 219; fortifies Saint Louis, 
220; leaves for Jefferson City, 221; his campaign in Missouri, 
221; appoints officers and approves bills improperly, 223; 
occupies Springfield, 221; at Jefferson City, 223; reproved 
by Secretary of War, 222, 223; removal of, 224; confidence 
in, shown by Germans, 225; his patriotism, 225; favored Char- 
coals, 279; aids hospitals, 288; fits up hospital cars, 296. 

Frost, General Daniel M., 66, 105; sketch of life of, 87; his plans 
for seizing Saint Louis, 87-90; his letter to Lyon, 94; disloyal 
record of, 94; a spy, 95; in command of all Missouri militia, 88; 
forms camp at west of city, 89; learns of Lyon's plans, 94; 
joins rebel army, 94; surrenders Camp Jackson, 95. 

Fugitive Slave Law, execution of, demanded, 52; a dead letter, 181. 

Fur trade, chief trade in Saint Louis, early part of nineteenth 
century, 8. 



376 Index 

Gallaher, Reverend H. M., attacked, while in pulpit of author, 131. 

Gamble, Honorable Hamilton R., chairman of Committee on Federal 
Relations, 49, 50, 53; chosen provisional governor of Missouri, 
228; issues proclamation, 228-229; calls for state troops, 229; 
takes action against guerrillas, 273. 

Georgia, Ordinance of Secession of, 55; commissioner from, visits 
Missouri officials, 53-56. 

Germans in Saint Louis, in 1860, 1; Republicans, 16; enter volim- 
teer service, 81; three fourths of volunteer force, 85; soldiers, 
97, 98; at attack on Camp Jackson, 97; in the Home Guards, 
106; rumor of intended rising of, 112; fear attack by Americans, 
113; rumor of intended advance of, on Jefferson City, 104; 
attack on, 106-107; bitterness against, 160; fired on, 204; 
at the Fair, 311. 

Giddings, Honorable J. R., of Connecticut Western Reserve, his 
address on slavery, 27, 28; his opposition to slavery, 27. 

Glenn, Honorable Luther J., commissioner from Georgia, visits 
Missouri convention of 1861, 53-56. 

Glover, Samuel T., lawyer, 4; member of Committee of Safety, 92; 
his writ of replevin, 93. 

Grant, General Ulysses S., at Saint Louis, 100; at Cairo, 209, 223; 
at Paducah, 223; organizes an army, above Columbus, 245; 
at Fort Henry, 245; at Fort Donelson, 246-247; on the Missis- 
sippi, 251; at Vicksburg, 298; sustains Western Sanitary 
Commission, 295; in Virginia, 320, 338, 340, 360; accuses 
Rosecrans, 321; at Appomattox, 360, 361. 

Greely, C. S., Esquire, of the Sanitary Commission, 289. 

Greely and Gale, loyal firm, name of, used as a blind, 104. 

Guerrillas, 240, 274-275, 321-324; cause much damage, 272; action 
against, 273; driven from Missouri, 273-274; invade Missouri 
from the South and Illinois, 320; plunder Union men, 324. 

Hagner, Major Peter V., description of, 67, 72; in command at 
arsenal, 67; claims to outrank Lyon, 68; refuses to fortify 
arsenal, 69; in command of ordnance, 70. 

Hall, Mr., of Randolph County, member of Convention of 1861, 44. 

HaU, Willard P., provisional Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, 228. 

Halleck, General Henry W., seizes secession rendezvous, 168; in 
command in Missouri, 234-250; protects railroads, 239-240; 
puts slaves to work for the government, 239-241; assesses rich 
rebels, 242-243; character of, 234; supports convention, 235; 
enforces requirement of oath of allegiance, 236, 352; suppresses 
display of rebel flag, 237; orders spies shot, 238; banishes spies, 
238; censors newspapers, 238; feeds refugees, 242-244; leaves 
Saint Louis, 250, 272; favors Claybanks and Charcoals, 279. 

Hammer, Colonel, 208. 

Hancock, Daniel J., deacon of Second Baptist Church, 123. 

Hancock, General Winfield S., anecdote of, 123. 

Hardee, General WiUiam J., 207. 

Harding, General, quartermaster general, sent by Governor Jackson 
to procure munitions, 90. 



Index 377 

Hamey, General William Selby, orders troops away from sub- 
treasury, 64; sketch of life of, 67; refuses chief command to 
Lyon, 68; sustained by General Scott and President Buchanan, 
70; appoints Lyon in command at the arsenal, 72; called to 
Washington, 73; characterizes the militia bill as a secession 
measure, 103; returns to Saint Louis, 108; tries to quiet panic, 
108-109; proclamation of, 108, 115; seizes arms, 116-117; his 
agreement with Price, 117; removal of, 118; succeeded by 
Lyon, 118, 198. 

Harper, Captain, extraordinary abolitionist, 174-176. 

Henderson, Honorable John B., chairman of committee, reports 
against prayer of Georgia to secede, 55. 

Henry, Fort, capture of, 245. 

Home Guards, 62, 72, 73, 200, 274; " Wide-Awakes " transformed 
into, 69; plans to secure arms for, 69; control of, in hands of 
Governor Jackson, 71, 72; attack upon, 106; rumor of in- 
tended attack by, 108-114; declared enemies to the Confederacy, 
233; in conflict with State Guards, 240; defend Saint Louis, 
327. 

" Homes," for soldiers, 292, 296, 300; for refugees, 293, 295, 261; 
for orphans, 314; number of people cared for in, 300. 

Hospitals, 288-308; great demand for, 291; fifteen, 291; New 
House of Refuge, 288; City Hospital, 288; City General, 290; 
cars fitted as, by General Fremont, 296; floating, 297; flying, 
297; Southerners in, 302; incidents in, 301-308; uplifting 
influence of, on Saint Louis, 308. 

How, John, member of Union Safety Committee, 69, 92, 93; defeat 
of, for mayor, 71. 

Howell, Mr., conditional unionist delegate to Convention of 1861, 52. 

Hunter, General David, succeeds Fremont, 225-226, 234. 

Independence, battle of, 273. 

Ironton, lead seized at, by Lyon, 118. 

Jackson, Governor Claiborn F., 44, 66, 71, 77, 79, 89, 94, 103, 105, 
119, 198; sympathizes with secession, 23, 33; favors con- 
vention, 41-42; receives Commissioner Glenn, 54; rumor of 
his intention to seize arsenal, 77; appoints police commissioners, 
72; refuses troops, 84, 88; plants batteries, 86; in corre- 
spondence with Confederacy, 87-88; summons special session of 
legislature, 88; confers with Frost on seizure of Saint Louis, 
87-88; buys munitions, 90; removes war material from Jefferson 
City, 104; a fugitive, 167, 227, 229; in conference with Lyon, 
198-202; visits Jefferson Davis at Richmond, 229; returns 
and issues proclamation, 231. 

Jackson, James, contraband, tries to learn to read, 265-266. 

Jefferson Barracks, hospital at, 291; receives and treats eleven 
thousand soldiers, 292. 

Jefferson City, 70, 77, 88, 201, 346, 347; Convention leaves, 43, 45, 
60; panic at, 102-104; evacuated by Jackson, 201; occupied 
by Lyon, 202; occupied by Brigadier General U. S. Grant, 



378 Index 

220; Fremont at, 221-223; troops at, overestimated, 330; 
emancipation celebrated at, 348. 

Jefferson, Tliomas, purchase of Louisiana by, 6. 

" Jolin Brown's Body," sung by Indiana troops, 245; by legislature, 
348; over Grant's last victory, 362. 

Johnson, Reverend G. J., D. D., 161, 162. 

Johnson, J. B., M.D., of Sanitary Commission, 289. 

Kansas, War, 11; invasion of, 24; Lyon in, 68; troops from, 
pursue Price, 330. 

Kelly, Captain, at Camp Jackson, 90, 91. 

Kelton, J. C, Fremont's assistant adjutant-general, 208. 

Knights of the Golden Circle, 317, 338; its numbers and wide 
influence, 317; checked by Rosecrans, 318; expected rising of, 
331. 

Ivrekel, Arnold, president of Convention of 1865, 344. 

Laclede, Pierre Ligueste, early trader, 6; digs first cellar, 7, 8. 

Ladies' Union Aid Society, 296; formation and composition of, 
293; receives donation from Western Sanitary Commission, 314. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, entertained in Saint Louis, 1825, 7. 

Lane, General, of Kansas, 284. 

Lawyers, distinguished, before the war, 4. 

Lead, seizure of, 118; exportation of, 118-119. 

Lee, General R. E., surrender of, rejoicing over, 360, 361. 

Legislature, votes to expel free negroes, 11; creates Convention, 
41, 42; opposes Convention, 56; attempts to carry Missouri 
into the Confederacy, 70, 71; special session of, 88; after cap- 
ture of Camp Jackson, 103; fears attack, 104; puts Governor 
Jackson In absolute control of Saint Louis, 103; passes militia 
bill, 103; fugitive, 227, 232; passes secession ordinance, 231- 
232. 

Lexington, Missouri, battle of, 219. 

Lieutenant-Governor, the unseated and fugitive secession, 227; 
issues proclamation at New Madrid, 229; the provisional, 
Willard P. Hall, 228. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 4, 19, 32, 51, 62, 71, 82, 84, 94, 124, 149, 299, 
318, 359, 360; his debates with Douglas, 11; |^ his declaration 
of 1858, 11; misrepresentation of, 15; election of, 18, 51, 340, 
341; speaks in Philadelphia, 37; inauguration of, 37, 38; 
nominated for president, 55, 338; his call for troops, 75; his 
call for troops denoimced, 84; anecdote of, 162; policy of, 
toward Fremont, 217; recalls Fremont's proclamation, 218; 
letter of, to Schofield, 282; allays strife, 285; effects of his 
death, 362-365, 366; portrait of, 366. 

Lindell's Grove, site of Camp Jackson, 89, 90. 165. 

Linton, Doctor, member of Convention of 1861, 43; in Convention 
of 1865; opposes Oath of I>oyalty, 355. 

Lovejoy, Elijah Parish, death of, at Alton, 80. 

Lyon, Nathaniel, sketch of the life of, 66-68; commissioned captain, 
67, 68; claim of, to supreme command, at arsenal, denied, 68; 
visits the " Wide-Awakes," 69; plans of, for arsenal, 69, 72; 



Index 379 

patrols vicinity of arsenal, 73; in command of troops, 70; in 
full command, 72, 73; plants batteries on bluffs, 73; empowered 
to raise and arm troops, 73; fortifies arsenal, 73; ability 
in defending arsenal, 76; dealings of, with Governor Yates of 
Illinois, 76; ruse of, to defend arsenal, 78; enrolls Missouri 
troops, 81, 83; refuses to remove troops, 84, 85; occupies 
bluffs, 88; declares governor in correspondence with Con- 
federacy, 87; visits Camp Jackson in disguise, 92; meets with 
Connnittee of Safety, 92-93; captures Camp Jackson, 95; 
removes munitions from Camp Jackson to the Arsenal, 104; 
made Brigadier-General, 118; seizes " J. C. Swan " and lead, 
118; success of, 119; confers with Price and Jackson, 198-201; 
campaign of, 201; at Boonville, 202-203; occupies Springfield, 
203, 207; occupies Jefferson City, 202; pleads for troops, 207, 
208; moves against Price and McCuUoch, 209-210: his letter to 
Fremont, 210; praised by Snead, 211; killed in battle of Wilson's 
Creek. 211; his army retreats to Rolla, 211; surprised Price 
and McCulloch at Wilson's Creek, 211; body borne through 
Saint Louis, 212. 

McClellan, General George B., 298; nominated for president, 338. 

McCulloch, General Ben, 203, 207, 209; helps win battle of Wilson's 
Creek, 211; with Price occupies Springfield, 211; defeated 
at Pea Ridge, 244. 

McDowell, Dr., Medical College of, made a military prison, 188-189. 

McKinstry, Major J., suppresses disloyal papers, 214; reprimands 
editor of Christian Advocate, 215; requires special permits 
to pass lines, 215. 

McNeil, Colonel, commandant of Saint Louis, 206. 

McPherson, William M., 122, 123. 

Marmaduke, marches towards Missouri, 323. 

Marshall, John, his interpretation of the Constitution, 51. 

Marshall, Honorable Thomas, lectures of, on Henry Clay, and 
the Revolution, 25, 26; downfall of, 27. 

Martial law, proclaimed in Saint Louis and Saint Louis County, 
213; in the State, 217; passes required to leave the city, 215; 
deprecated by the loyal and disloyal, 216-217. 

Massachusetts, 26, 127, 295, 299. 

Meetings for prayer, 137-138. 

Mercantile Library Hall, 116, 117, 183; address in, by Honorable 
J. R. Giddings, 27; Convention of 1861, meets in, 44, 45; Con- 
vention of 1865 meets in, 343. 

Militia, of Missouri, to be called out by governor, 63; called to drill, 
May 2, 1861, 88; bill for equipping, 103; regiment of, mutinies, 
284. 

Minute Men, Democratic political club, 20; drilled in military tactics, 
21; armed, 22; under control of Governor Jackson, 71, 72; 
refuse to lay down arms. 81; join General Frost, 89. 

Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, of 1864, 309-314; see " Fair." 

Missouri Historical vSociety, 6. 

Missouri Republican, prints sermon on " Duty of Obedience to 



380 Index 

Established Government," 133; its Union and Secession 
editors, 143-144. 

Mitchell, Captain, of " City of Alton," 79. 

Mulligan, surrender of, at Lexington, 219, 220. 

Napoleon, sells Louisiana, 6. 

Negroes in Saint Louis, slaves, 1, 9; bill to exclude free, 11-14; 
a pastor of, 12-13; at the Fair, 313; schools for, 333-337; cele- 
brate passing of Emancipation Ordinance, 347; own taxable 
property, 333. 

Nelson, Reverend Henry A., 4; Presbyterian Unionist, 121. 

Neosho, guerrillas near, 323. 

New House of Refuge Hospital, 288. 

New Orleans, slave market, 172, 177, 182. 

Newspapers, see " Press." 

Noble, Thomas S., sketch of life of, 155-157; paints " The Slave 
Mart," 156; paints "John Brown going to Execution," 157. 

Nurses, qualifications of, for Saint Louis hospitals, 294; efficiency 
of, 305. 

Oath, to sustain the constitution of United States and Missouri, by 
Convention of 1861, 53; by members of Camp Jackson, 89; 
of fealty to Missouri asserted supreme, 103; of allegiance, taken 
by prisoners, 102, 196; in prayer meeting, 137-138; demanded 
by Halleck, 235-236; keeps many from voting, 341; "of 
Loyalty," 351; severity of, 354-356; distress resulting from, 
357-359; " Test Oath," 353; called " Draconian," 355; set 
aside by Supreme Court, 359. 

Oliver, Mordecai, Secretary of State of Missouri, 228. 

Order of American Knights, 317, 331. 

Order of the Star, 317; see " Knights of the Golden Circle." 

Ordinance of Emancipation, 345-349. 

Orr, Honorable Sample, speech in Convention of 1861, 54. 

Paducah, occupied by Grant, 223; Sanitary Commission at, 296. 

Panic, in Saint Louis after capture of Camp Jackson, 101-102; in 
Jefferson City, 103-104; of May 12, 107-115; at Boonville, 322. 

Partridge, George, Esquire, of Sanitary Commission, 289. 

Pierce, President Franklin, 68. 

Pike, General Albert, 244. 

Pillow, General Gideon J., 207, 208, 229, 230. 

Pilot Knob, Confederate troops near, 326; General Ewing at, 327. 

Planters' Hotel, 163, 164; conference at, 199-202. 

Plot against the Union, 315-332; clues of, followed up, 316; object 
and character of, 317; names of organization in, 317; places 
and leaders in, 317; incited by press, 319; rumors of, get 
abroad, 320; movementsby guerrillas, apart of, 321-325; helped 
by bushwhackers, 324-326; General Price in, 326-331; failure 
of, 331. 

Police of Saint Louis, control of, in hands of Governor Jackson, 71, 
72; commissioners of, demand reinoval of troops, 84; checks 
rioting, 102. 

Pope, Major General John, 212, 368. 



Index 381 

Post, Reverend Truman M., 4, 121, 301. 

Praying for the President, 124-126. 

Preachers, distinguished, before the war, 4. 

Preaching, against disunion, 127-134, 136, 139-140, 149, 166; 
preaching "politics," 139; to soldiers, 301; of good cheer, 
338-340. 

Presbyterians, minister of, preaches on " The Ultimatum of the 
South," 121; General Convention of, in Saint Louis, 366; debate 
in Convention over secession of Synod, 367-368. 

Press, the, attitude and influence of, 142-145; censored by Halleck, 
238; The Missouri Republican, 12, 116, 133, 143-144, pub- 
lishes sermon on " Obedience to Government," 132; Harper's 
Weekly, 15; The Missouri Democrat, 143, prints Te Deum 
extra, 247; Evening News suppressed for criticizing Fremont, 
219-220; War Bulletin and Missourian suppressed, 214; 
Christian Advocate threatened with suppression, 215; Metro- 
politan Record, circulation of, prohibited in Missouri, 319. 

Price, Sterling, president of convention of 1861, 53, 61; a Confederate 
general, 61, 117, 191, 234; campaigns of, 201-203, 226, 326-332; 
driven from Missouri, 203, 240, 244, 330; invades Missouri, 
207, 209, 239-240, 327; rumor of intended invasion of, 322-323; 
in conference with Lyon, 198-201; victorious at Wilson's 
Creek, 211; occupies Springfield, 211; defeated at Pea Ridge, 
244; recognizes guerrilla Anderson, 325; checked at Fort 
Davidson, 328; fails to attack Saint Louis and Jefferson City, 
329-330; destroys much property, 331-332; failure of his last 
campaign, 331-332. 

Prisoners, from Camp Jackson, 97-99, refuse food at Arsenal, 99; 
paroled, 102; Confederate, 191-196; anecdotes concerning, 
189-197; a Baptist preacher a prisoner, 191-194; soldiers get 
Thanksgiving dinner meant for, 195; secession minister a 
prisoner, 196; at Boonville, 202. 

Prisons, military, 188-197; character of, 189; Dr. McDowell's 
Medical College used as, 188; slave pen used as, 193. 

Pritchard, Colonel, 89. 

Proclamations, of General Harney, 108, 110, 115; Emancipation, 
of Lincoln, 149; of General Fremont, 217; of secession. Lieu- 
tenant Governor, 229; of General Thompson, 230; of Governor 
Jackson, 231; of General Price, 233; of General Halleck, 236, 
239; assessing rich rebels, 242, freeing slaves, 241; of Governor 
Gamble, 228-229; of General Schofield, 284; of Emancipation 
by Governor Fletcher, 348; of the Revised Constitution, 357; 
declaring end of the war, 368. 

Protestants admitted to Spanish Saint Louis only by pass, 9. 

Provisional Government of Missouri, 228. 

Pulpit, 120-142; prudentially silent, 120-121; one voice for seces- 
sion, 121, 135; supported by loyal laymen, 122-126; soldiers in 
the congregation, 123-124. 

Quaker conscience, 303. 

Quantrel, 273, 322; invades Kansas, 284. 



382 Index 

Quinby, Major General, 249-250. 

Quincy, fugitives from panic fiee to, 111. 

Kamsay, Charles G., editor Evening News, imprisoned, 219-220. 

Rawlings, United States Marshal, seizes munitions of war, 116. 

" R. C. Wood," floating hospital, 297. 

Refugees, 251-267; follow army of Freinont, 226; fed by private 
charity and army rations, 242, and by enforced assessments, 
243-244; anecdotes of, 253-267; classes of, 252-259; ignorance 
of, 255-260; numbers of, 261; freedmen, 262-267; homes for, 
261, 293, 295; white, 300; from Price's invasion, 332. 

Republicans, 20; party of, success of, the doom of slavery, 15; 
appealed to by Carl Schurz, 17; success of, in 1860, 18. 

Rioting, after the capture of Cainp Jackson, 101-102, 106-107; in 
attack on church, 131-132; in attack on minister, 135; from 
attack on German troops, 204-205. 

Robinson, Lieutenant, 64. 

Rolla, Missouri, Lyon's army falls back to, 211; guerrillas near, 322; 
Ewing retreats to, 329; wounded hero at, 307. 

Rosecrans, General W. S., President of Mississippi Valley Sanitary 
Fair, 309, 316; succeeds Schofield, 309; in command of De- 
partment of Missouri, 315; ferrets out disloyal plot, 316-323; 
enlists negro troops, 319; sends away troops, 320; prohibits 
circulation of Metropolitan Record, checks 319: accused of 
violation of orders, 321; gets help from General Smith, 327. 

Sac and Fox Indians, sell land, 7. 

Saint-Ange, Captain Louis, acting French governor, 1765, 7. 

Saint Louis, character of people of, in 1860, 1, 3, 4; population 
in 1860, 1, in 1822, 8; buildings in, 2; dwellings in, 2, 3; 
early history of, 6-10; site of, on terraces, 2, 7; capital of Upper 
Louisiana, 6; trading post in 1764, 6; its defenses in 1764, 7; 
incorporated as a town, 7; chartered as a city, 8; divided in 
sentiment, 40. 

Schofield, General John McAllister, in command in Missouri, 272-275, 
282-286, 309, 315; commands militia against guerrillas, 273; 
commands Army of the Frontier, 282; opposed by Charcoals, 
283; threatens newspapers, 284; sustained by Lincoln, 285; 
his view of the radicals, 286; opposed by Claybanks, 287; drills 
negro troops, 313. 

Schools, for negroes, 333-337; no public, for negroes in 1864, 333; 
legislature provides, 336; private, for negroes, poor quality 
of, 333-335; examination of teachers for, 334; school board in 
favor of, for negroes, 336. 

Schurz, Carl, address of, in Saint Louis, " The Doom of Slavery," 
16-18, 369. 

Scott, General Winfield, denies supreme command to Lyon, 68, 70. 

Schuyler, Episcopalian clergyman. Unionist, 121. 

Search for arms. May 17, 116-117. 

Secession, urged by cotton states, 23, 24, 33, 49, 57; of South 
Carolina, 24, 32, 33; of Gulf states, 32, 33, 36; of Georgia, 
53, 55; reasons against, 35, 36, 48-60; process of, 40; Mis- 



Index 383 

souri saved from, 40-62; results of Missouri's rejection of, 62; 
efforts for, 71, 81, 82, 147, 315, 332; preaching against, 127-134; 
attitude of church and press toward, 142-145; discussion of, 
146-148; divisions over, in faniiHes, neighborhoods and churches, 
146-158; division over in Chamber of Commerce, 153-154; 
Ordinance of, passed by defunct legislature, 231-232. 

Secessionists, active, preceding Lincoln's inauguration, 38; in 
Missouri, hopeful, 42. / 

Seward, William H., 11. 

Sheeley, Mr., of Independence, conditional unionist, 51. 

Shelby, General, invades Missouri, 326; opposes Ewing, 328. 

Sherman, General W. T., 295; at Camp Jackson, 99-100; receives 
aid from Western Sanitary Commission. 298; calls for soldiers, 
320; troops meant for, sent to Missouri, 327; in Georgia, 338, 
340. 

Simmons, Colonel, 92. 

Simmonds, Medical Director, turns over the " Ben Franklin," 
to Sanitary Commission, 297. 

Sisters of Charity, in hospital, 288, 302. 

Slave Mart, the, painting, 156-157. 

Slave pens, Lynch's and Children's, 182-187. 

Slavery, its extinction hoped for, 9, feared, 15; discussion of, 11; 
protected by law in Saint Louis, 9; speech of Carl Shurz on, 
16; speech of Giddings on, 27; how to preserve, 48; Fugitive 
Slave Law, 51, 52, 181; condition of the slaves, 170-181; 
abolition of, demanded, 277, 345-348; abolition of, by Conven- 
tion of 1865, 344-345. 

Slaves, small number of, in Saint Louis, 1, 9; last auction of, 28-31; 
condition of, 170-181; emancipation of, by Lincoln, 149, by 
owners, 170-176, by Fremont. 217, by llalleck, 241; attitude 
of, towards their masters and the war, 178-181. 

Smarius, Father, 4. 

Smith, General A. J., defends Saint Louis, 326-327; advances to 
Pilot Knob, 327; retires behind the Meramec, 328. 

Smith, Mr., delegate from Saint Louis to Convention of 1861, 54. 

Snead, Thomas L., aide to Governor Jackson, 199; praises Lyon, 
211; slaves of, freed by Fremont, 217. 

Soldiers' Home, 300; see " Homes." 

Songs, John Brown's Body, 245; Star Spangled Banner, 247; 
Yankee Doodle, 247; Rally Round the Flag, 362; America, 
129, 362. 

Sons of Liberty, The, 317; see " Knights of the Golden Circle." 

Spies, in Saint Louis, 237, 238. 

Springfield, Illinois, shipment of arms to, 76-81; Lincoln at, 162; 
Lincoln's burial at, 365. 

Springfield, Missouri, occupied by Lyon's troops, 202; occupied 
by Lyon, 203, 207, 209; by Price and McCulloch, 211. 

State Guards, 229, 233; in conflict with Home Guards, 240. 

State Rights Doctrine, absurdity of, shown, 84; humored by Lin- 
coln, 218. 



384 Index 

Statesmen, distinguished, before the war, 4. 

Steamboat, first at Saint Louis, 8; four thousand of, in 1860, 9; 
City of Alton, 77-80; J. C. Swan, 118; City of Louisiana, 297; 
R. C. Wood, 297. 

Stephens, Alexander H., vice-president of Confederacy, 59, 197. 

Stevenson, Colonel, 213. 

Stewart, R. M., Governor of Missouri, 33; pockets bill expelling free 
negroes, 14; received coldly commissioner from Alabama, 23. 

Stoddard, Major, agent of France and L^nited States, 6. 

Stokes, Captain James H., conveys arms from arsenal, 77-81. 

Sturgeon, Isaac H., assistant treasurer, calls for troops, 63-65. 

Sumner, General Edwin V., 124. 

Tate, Samuel, of South Carolina, views of, on importance of Mis- 
souri to Confederacy, 118, 119. 

Taylor, Daniel G., mayor of Saint Louis, 71. 

Thanksgiving dinner to unintended diners, 195. 

Thompson, Brigadier-General, of Missouri State Guards, 229; issues 
proclamation, 230. 

Union Chamber of Commerce, formed, 154. 

Unionists, kinds of, 35, 49-53; unconditional, 35, 36, 51; conditional, 
51, 52, 57; Calhoun unionists, 50, 51; condition of, 51, 52, 53; 
not panic stricken, 115; numbers of, in 1865, 362; their success 
in Convention of 1861, 61; parade of on Washington's birthday, 
248-249. 

United States Sanitary Commission, 297. 

Vallandigham, Clement L., supreme commander of secret order, 
317, 331. 

Vanbuskirk, Mr., of Holt County, 51. 

Van Dorn, General Earl, defeated at Pea Ridge, 244. 

Vicksburg, supplies received at, 298. 

Volunteer troops, 81, 83; numbers of, increased, 85, 244; preaching 
to, 301; come to defense of Saint Louis, 327. 

Webster, Soldiers' Orphans' Home at, 314. 

Welsh, " Father," Baptist minister, forced to solicit pass, 216. 

Western Sanitary Commission, 254, 288-308; helps refugees, 261; 
authorized to fit up hospitals, 288-289; composition of, 289; 
opens. City General Hospital, 290, home for soldiers, 292, home 
for refugees, 293; sustained by generals and Secretary of War, 
295; donations to, 295-296, 299, 314; visits Cairo and Paducah, 
296; cooperates with United States Sanitary Commission, 
297-298; sends aid to Generals McClellan and Sherman, and 
to prisoners at Andersonville, 298; aids freedmen on the lower 
Mississippi, 298; great demands on, 309; holds Fair, 309; 
establishes Orphans' Home, 314. 

Wide-Awakes, The, a Republican political club, 19, 20; arms for, 
sent as plaster casts, 21-22; become Home Guards, 69, 71, 72; 
armed, 81; see also " Home Guards." 

Wilson's Creek, battle of, 160, 212, 213, 288; General Lyon killed 
at, 211. 

Witzig, Julius J., member of Committee of Safety, 92. 



Index 385 

Wood, R. C, Assistant Surgeon-General, commands flying hospital, 

297. 
Yancey, William L., of Alabama, 59; a Calhoun Unionist, 51. 
Yankees, 99; denounced, 161-162. 
Yates, Governor Richard, of Illinois, makes requisition for arms in 

arsenal, 76; summons Stokes to secure the arms, 77. 
Yeatman, James E., President of Western Sanitary Commission, 

254, 289, 290; his great work, 288-299; description of, 289; 

agent for Miss Dorothea L. Dix, 294; takes aid to Vicksburg, 

298, 299. 
Zagonyi, 221; heroism of a soldier of, 307-308. 






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